Some Changes to My Blog

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This photo haiga was published in 2016 in Frameless Sky.

Changes

Recently I decided to make a few substantial changes to my poetry blog. The first is I have eliminated the space for responses to the poems. From this point on, you can read the poems but can no longer leave a comment. A few of you will be disappointed in this, but most readers will be fine with it. I’ve noticed other poets doing the same thing, so this shouldn’t be too big a surprise.

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The second change is that sometimes I will cluster poems in a single posting. Up until now, each poem or group of poems published together in a single journal pretty much had its own entry. As I age, I have found myself attending less to this blog. I don’t want to eliminate it, so I think this should be a reasonable compromise.

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The Covid-19 world pandemic has changed so many habits, practices and expectations. I love to read other poetry blogs and enjoy the great diversity of work out there in the world, but at times it’s hard to keep up with everything. It’s probably the same for all of us in different ways.

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Poetry should be read at leisure. Read one at a time. Read it out loud. I offer each poem to you as a reader of this blog as a gift from me.

Three of three . . . (tanka)

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And now, here is the third tanka published in GUSTS, no. 34, Contemporary Tanka, Fall/Winter 2021.

so much silence
during the pandemic year
now punctuated by news
of your cancer—
the silence deepens

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Two of three . . . (tanka)

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Here is the second of three tanka published in GUSTS, no. 34, Contemporary Tanka, Fall/Winter 2021.
The pandemic has made all of us look at life and death differently and perhaps more clearly.

 

 

one day when I am
long gone from the world,
     you’ll find me here
& there among scarlet leaves
or blue damselflies

 

 

One of three . . .(tanka)

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In the latest issue, GUSTS no. 34, Contemporary Tanka, Fall/Winter 2021, I am lucky enough to have three tanka published. I’ve read through the whole journal twice so far to enjoy the excellent submissions from such a wide variety of poets. Paper journals are especially nice in that you have them at hand when you need something good to read. 

Here is one of the tanka I wrote:

 

 

growing old together
we make light of losing
thoughts or words –
even now I fall in love
with you again

 

 

 

 

Spring’s soft greening (tanka)

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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

 

 

The Silent Surprise

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Published in Blithe Spirit,  31.3  2021

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A responsive tanka sequence between Mary Kendall (USA) & Hazel Hall (AUS)

 

 

The Silent Surprise

 


a life piled
in a shopping trolley – 
the cold
cathedral steps
kept clean and tidy                                                                  HH

 

broomcorn gathered
and plaited, tied and cut – 
if only the years
had passed so neatly 
without much fuss                                                                   MK

 

lawn raked free
of twigs and leaves
green bin full
a mob of cockatoos
prunes the trees once more                                                 HH                                            

 

shouts of confusion
and chaos in teargas clouds
    that burning need 
to make sense                                                                        
of why we looked away                                                           MK

 

from antique lands
an ancient epic
rewritten
this shattered visage
covered in graffiti                                                                   HH

 

the silent surprise
of a bundle of letters
bound in red string
hidden deep
in the endless rubble                                                               MK

 

 

My thanks go to Hazel Hall, one of my favorite tanka writers in the world. This is our second collaboration in writing a responsive tanka sequence. 

Note: Hazel’s verses are in regular type; Mary’s verses are in italics