Triveni Haikai India: Tanka Take Home Featured Poet, January 2023

Wednesday Feature: Tanka Take Home

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

The interview can be accessed via the "Articles/About" tab of this blog.

My closing comments after a month of mentoring:

Well, my dears, we have now come to the end of our four-week tanka journey. Thank you for your warm welcome and generous comments along the way. Your enthusiasm and openness to gentle suggestion has made this a most rewarding experience!

Thanks also Priti for the invitation, and to our Triveni hosts, Kala, Firdaus, and Suraja, for initiating this Wednesday Feature. It was a privilege and honour to participate.

I'm beyond grateful to my husband, Larry, for gifting me his evenings for the past month. Were it not for his assistance with reading and scrolling, I would not have been able to immerse myself in your lovely offerings.

I leave you with this tanka art as a token of my gratitude...

to all creatures

that make the forests

i give thanks

for acorns gathered,

then forgotten

If we think of tanka as a mature and revered forest, aren't we all beginners (acorns) in the larger scheme of things? My life has been enriched by tanka, and I hope yours will be, too!

(Note for the tanka art enthusiasts here: I chose to employ the associative technique for this artwork, rather than the illustrative or interpretive approach.)

I'm now riding off into the sunset, and I have passed the tanka baton the masterful poet, David Terelinck!

a thousand thanks, and many blessings,

Debbie

Selected comments from participants:

It's been a wonderful opportunity to read your verses, and your feedback on our verses, Debbie. Thank you so much! (Linda)

Thank you so much Debbie for enriching our lives with your generous feedback and thoughts. We thank you and your lovely husband for taking the time from your busy schedules. Really appreciate it. I like the acorn reference. I'm that acorn right now. So blessed to be in this forest. (Firdaus)

Thank you so very much dear Debbie for your precious time devoted to this project with such enthusiasm and eloquence and thorough command of the art of tanka. (Barbara)

What a wonderful month it has been. It's been such a pleasure reading your exquisite tanka and we have been blessed with your sensitive and detailed feedback to our work. I know that I have learned a lot this month. (Reid)

What a rich month it has been. We thank Larry for helping you each evening and most of all to you for the effort and time spent in our forum. Words are inadequate to express my gratitude. (Kala)

Thank you so much for this enriching month of poetry and interactions, Debbie. It's been a wonderful privilege. I extend my thanks to your husband too for his time and commitment. I am a very small acorn in this forest of giants...I look forward to reading your poetry in the future and hopefully having you visit here again. (Suraja)

Thank you, Debbie and Larry. It has been a rich learning experience this month. (Amrutha)

Debbie, your presence here each day for this entire month has meant so much to each of us. We looked forward to your responses and thoughtful feedback...your 'gentle' suggestions. It has been a wonderful and rich learning experience for each of us...Loved your tanka art. Your tanka has left a deep impress and I will treasure it. (Priti)

Oh, wow. Debbie's two shimmering tanka fell into my afternoon like manna from heaven, both enriching and uplifting. I'm simply gobsmacked by her work, especially that first one. (Billie)

January 4, 2023:

dried cattails

delicately spun with frost

confections

sweetening the bitterness

of winter without you

2nd Place, 2022 Fleeting Words Tanka Competition

awaiting

rain's unkept promise

crops wither

in the dust of dreams

passed down to me

1st Place, 2022 Drifting Sands Monuments No. 1 Contest

Challenge for this week: commentary by Priti

With its significant, opening word 'awaiting' in L 1, the second tanka creates anticipation in the reader; then it speaks of belied hopes through a strong image of withered crops as the rain fails to keep its promise. This is followed by a shift to a personal moment and experience from the speaker's own life. One is also struck by the skillful use of personification and metaphor in this well-crated tanka.

January 11, 2023:

a smudge

of blackbirds swirling

into evening . . .

how fluid the shape

of this sorrow

2nd Place, 2018 Fleeting Words Tanka Competition

as if I were

this ash-filled burl,

black veins

of decay winding through

my body like a river

Commended, 2020 The Burning Issue Tanka Contest

Challenge for this week: commentary by Priti

The first tanka opens with a striking image of 'a smudge/of blackbirds swirling/into evening . . .' The sight of the birds silently whirling into fading light makes the narrator articulate this perception: 'how fluid the shape/of this sorrow'. Each of us knows that profound sorrow has a way of coming back in waves to overwhelm certain moments of one's life.

In this lovely tanka each word is used with care and has its rightful place. Also, the repetition of the 's' sound makes it flow with mellifluous ease.

January 18, 2023:

mute swans

under a moon bridge

the things

I should have confessed

make no difference now

1st Place, 2016 Fleeting Words Tanka Contest

dried curls

of gray reindeer moss

crunch softly

underneath our boots . . .

no other sound, but breath

1st Place, 2016 San Francisco International Tanka Competition

Challenge for this week: commentary by Priti

When I read the first tanka several times and reflected on it, I wasn't aware that a 'mute swan' is so called because 'it is less vocal than the other swan species'. I was drawn to the striking image of the 'mute swans/under a moon bridge'. The narrator could've said 'silent swans'. However, 'mute' is more evocative and resonant. There is a deep pause after L2 and then the narrator plunges into the lower verse with her dramatic statement: 'the things/I should have confessed/make no difference now'. Dexterously, she juxtaposes the muteness of the swans with her muteness or silence about certain things. Then finally ends her confession about not having confessed certain things. There is a realistic recognition of this truth: how passage of time alters the significance and impact of a confession. Or, makes it unnecessary.

An image based on direct observation and the precise simplicity of the words to speak of a certain emotion make this tanka a memorable one.

January 25, 2023:

tracks of birds

meander through snow . . .

the surgeon

marks her left breast

with a cross

1st Place, 2016 British Haiku Society Awards

the ocean

was in a rage last night

but today,

these peace offerings

of blue mussels and kelp

1st Place, 2018 Sanford Goldstein International Tanka Contest

Challenge for this week: commentary by Priti

The second tanka, which lends itself beautifully to recitation, starts with moments of turbulence and ends on a note of serenity. With each quiet reading, it offers a deeper and richer experience, not just of the natural world, but of the world of people too: their tendency to disrupt relationships and then re-forge them. Sadly, not all 'rages' transition to 'peace offerings'.