Like so many other people, the year and a half pandemic has thrown my sense of time way off. I’m so far behind in posting newly published poems on this blog that I find myself now playing catch up. I am both honored and happy to have had such fine journals select some of my work to publish in 2021.
both of us relieved
we made it to this side
of the pandemic –
falling back in love
with spring’s soft greening
Published in Ribbons, Tanka Café, Spring 2021
day moon ~
no shadow on
my mammogram
Published: Blithe Spirit 31.3 2021
A haiku or a senryu? I love this poem very much, and I’m so grateful to Caroline Skanne, the editor of Blithe Spirit, for choosing it for publication.
I have always been fascinated with seeing a “day moon.” I’ve always considered it a sign or good luck or something fortunate happening or about to happen. Do you have any thoughts about seeing the moon out during the daylight hours? Is it magical to you? It is for me.
Three poems (two haiku and one tanka) were published in the winter issue of Kokako, 2021. I have a real fondness for this journal because I love all things Kiwi. New Zealand is a beautiful country with such great people. They have a very active poetry community, and Kokako is a beautiful journal to be part of.
1.
snow drifts ~
the wild wind’s
last brief fling
2.
woodland colours
now grow pale
winter light
3.
arranging zinnias
in an old milk jug,
this pandemic silence
urges me to notice
the simplest things
Note: Photo of Zinnias (c) 2021 by Park Seeds
Tanka Café @ Ribbons
Winter 2021: Volume 17, Number 1
it isn’t a matter
of distance for me –
I learned by age five
how to slip deep inside
that passing cloud
.
Tanka poets are always proud to have something published in Ribbons, the journal of the Tanka Society America. It is one of the finest journals out there and it’s devoted to tanka and tanka-related work. Besides the main part of Ribbons, each issue has the Tanka Café, edited by Michael McLintock. Michael is an outstanding poet and was the editor of Ribbons for a long time. For many years he has focused on the Tanka Café, a favorite place for many of us. He puts out a prompt for each issue and poets write to that prompt. He gives us great leeway in how we interpret the prompt. This issue had the theme: Escapes. A great prompt indeed! The poems selected were wonderfully varied and always great to read. I interpreted the theme in my own way of course. It has to do with imagination and how early we can learn to escape to it when we need to get away from things in our real life. My thanks to Michael McLintock for selecting this tanka.
a gathering basket
filled with rosehips & hazels –
why is it so hard
to put back all the bits
and pieces you left behind?
Published in GUSTS: Contemporary Tanka 33 (Tanka Canada)
starry-eyed
the vast galaxy
of a child’s imagination
Published (c) Frogpond, Volume 44.1 Winter 2021
A Poet in Time 