TANKA TAKE HOME — 6th May, 2026 Featuring poet: Stacey Dye

hosts: Firdaus Parvez, Kala Ramesh, Priti Aisola & Suraja Menon Roychowdhury

Introducing a new perspective to our Wednesday Feature!

6th May, 2026

poet of the month: Stacey Dye

coloring

outside the lines

shades

of gray and black—

my shadow on paper

red lights, June 2013

another day

another test—

life pulls 

thread after thread

until I unravel

Moonbathing, Spring/Summer 2022

dandelion

caught in a current—

wishes

unspoken

lost to the wind

AHA The Anthology 2012 

We thank Stacey warmly for sharing her poems and for her thoughtful responses to our questions.

Q.1

TTH: Do you come from a literary background?  What writers did you enjoy reading as a child? Did you write as a child? 

SD: No, I don’t come from a formal literary background. My primary literary journeys were from the classics I read in high school. To Kill a Mockingbird, Moby Dick, The Yearling…things like that.

As a child it was authors of children’s and teen’s books. Beverly Cleary and Judy Blume.

I did not write as a child. My experience with self-expression came much later in life.

About the poet in her own words:

I’ve loved words forever. I collect them on rocks, jewelry and tokens. I began to write poetry over ten years ago. I started with free verse and ultimately found I loved tanka. It is a wonderful release for my feelings and emotions. I live in South Georgia, USA with my husband Dennis, my cat Frankie and dog Happy.

Your Challenge this Week:

Shadow on paper, life unravelling thread by thread, unspoken wishes lost ... there's a story unfolding in these lovely tanka. Therein lies your challenge. Find your own journey.

Have fun!

And remember – tanka, because of those two extra lines, lends itself most beautifully when revealing a story. And tanka prose is storytelling.

Give these ideas some thought and share your tanka and tanka-prose with us here. Keep your senses open, observe things that happen around you and write. You can post tanka and tanka-prose outside of these themes as well.

PLEASE NOTE

1. Post only one poem at a time, only one per day.

2. Only 2 tanka and two tanka-prose per poet per prompt.

    Tanka art, of course, if you want to.

3. Share your best-polished pieces.

4. Please do not post something in a hurry or something you have just written. Let it simmer for a while.

5. Post your final edited version on top of your original verse.

6. Don't forget to give feedback on others' poems.

We are delighted to open the comment thread for you to share your unpublished tanka and tanka-prose (within 250 words) to be considered for inclusion in the haikuKATHA monthly magazine.