The Bowerbird Tanka Group - 21st Bowerbird Tanka Workshop, November 30, 2019

I extend my deep gratitude to Julie Thorndyke for the following generous and sensitive commentary:

Appraisal by Julie Thorndyke

stubble fires
scarred fields under siege
we surrender
to the acrid breath
of smoking dragons

Cattails, January 2014


"When I read this poem for the first time, it gave me shivers up my spine. No doubt it is because in Australia we are in the grip of early bushfires: a spring in which even rainforests are burning, and koalas are dropping from heat in a scarred landscape which no longer resembles the lush seaside towns of our childhood summer holidays.

stubble fires
scarred fields under siege

Debbie Strange is writing about specific agricultural fields but for me they are the country landscapes of memory, brought to mind through the poet's use of sibilance and the hard, consonant sounds of 'f's and 'b' and 'd' and 'c/k'. The metaphor of the dragon representing fire is traditional, but the specific mention of "acrid breath" makes the image very real and reinforces for me the allusion to lost childhood places. The terrible smell after the bushfire. The desolation brought by a monster more real than Smaug himself. The word 'siege' represents the battle between nature and man, as in Tolkien's mythical war. How I wish that our native trees were able to mobilize, like Ents, and carry our wildlife to safety.

But no: the third line, the classic tanka pivot, is chilling: "we surrender". Hope is gone. We accept the dragons' power. It is a death scene.

I have never met Debbie Strange, except on the pages of tanka journals. I have learned that her words are elegant and piercing, and often they provide that little emotional jolt that make tanka such a powerful form of poetry. Here she uses a clasic tanka shape; fewer than 31 syllables; there is a rhythm in the lines and a build-up to line 5 and the drama of the dragon image.

There is plenty of room for wondering in this poem. Smoke can be used as a tool, and perhaps that is another message that readers could glean from these words. The mark of an effective tanka is that there is space for readers to bring to it their own interpretations.

This poem

stubble fires
scarred fields under siege
we surrender
to the acrid breath
of smoking dragons

is for me, a call to arms—we must react against these words and not surrender to the dragon but work to change the seemingly inevitable descent into smoke-filled disaster on this planet. Thank you, Debbie."