Blithe Spirit, Journal of the British Haiku Society,
Volume 28 Number 4, November 2018
Three tanka were published in Blithe Spirit this past November:
Snow Landscape by Hans Braxmeier
winter woodland
bereft of birdsong
with your passing
even clear days
are shadowed
Photo by Frantisek Krejci
together so long
we seem to finish
one another’s sentences,
fluent in the pauses
of each other’s mind
Universe by Gerd Altmann
loneliness
comes and goes,
dancing around
my mind
with two left feet
cattails, October 2018 Issue
The Official Journal of the United Haiku and Tanka Society
black swan
the beauty
in difference
Credit:Bournemouth News / Rex Features
I urge all of you to read the full issue of cattails, which you can download as a pdf here: http://cattailsjournal.com/currentissue.html
Three tanka published in one my very favorite journals.
GUSTS No. 28, Contemporary Tanka
(fall/winter 2018)
pounding rains
& the peonies are lost –
how did I miss
your pallor, your reticence
that last day?
turning from pale gold
to dusky violet
our last embrace
so certain
so final
rain patter
on windows –
just when it seems
the darkness is over
it all begins again
Three senryu and one haiga appeared in Prune Juice, Journal of Senryu, Kyoka, Haibun & Haiga, Issue 25, July 2018.
wild apple–
one bite is all
it took
inertia–
a thin coat of dust
on his burial urn
cloud cover–
darkness brewing
in daddy’s words
My thanks to editor, Steve Hodge.
Cover Art: Happy Monk by Jerry Dreesen
Two tanka of mine appeared in the last issue of Ribbons, the journal of the Tanka Society of America.
Ribbons, Fall 2017: Volume 13, Number 3
still collecting dolls
into her old age
a special name for each –
and one story
she refused to tell
Tanka Café, Fall 2017: theme was “paper”
a book propped
by the pillow on my knees,
page after page
I ease into someone
else’s life
Gusts, Contemporary Tanka, one of my favorite print journals, arrived here in London this week. Edited by Kozue Uzawa, the journal is a publication of Tanka Canada. The tanka are placed on the page under a category heading such as “life,” “scent,” “moon,” or “relationships.” Many of my favorite tanka poets appear in this journal, and of course it’s always great to discover new poets or poets whose work I don’t know. The overall quality and standard is very high, and this makes for excellent reading and rereading. I’m pleased to say that three of my tanka appear in Gusts, no. 25, Contemporary Tanka, Spring/Summer 2017. I hope you enjoy reading them.
watching clouds
begin to drift
from your soft sable brushes –
you make the sky bluer
than blue, not grey
the shivery silk
of your words
slips around me –
the first line of us
now written
all that time waiting
to hear from you
I ascend the stairway
of a deserted station,
pale Freesias in hand
These three tanka were written by Mary Kendall, (c) 2017,
Gusts, no. 25, Contemporary Tanka, Spring/Summer 2017
The fall issue of cattails is out at last. Due to a big switch around of editors, the September issue was delayed and is now published in December. What a big issue it is, full of so many poems to read. Many of my favorite poets are in this issue and there are some who are new to me still to be discovered.
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I have two haiku included in this issue:
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first blossoms –
I tell myself this year
will be different.
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daybreak …
the birds wake us
song by song.
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and a few senryu:
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long yawns …
breathing in
his boredom.
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zafu zabuton zazen zzzzz
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plus one tanka:
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long ago I heard
the sound of wuthering wind
blowing through the night –
a bleakness so forlorn,
a loneliness bereft of words.
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My thanks to all the editors of cattails for their hard work. I cannot begin to imagine the number of hours it takes to put together something this substantial.
