North American Tanka Contest Results

Modern Tanka

Any judge considering tanka for a contest must confront the definition of tanka and his or her tanka aesthetics. For me, a tanka is an emotional poetic construct, a present-tense and present-intense conveyance of honesty about the self in the context of nature and/or humanity. Formally, in English, the tanka is typically five lines long (adding a title is inappropriate, I feel, in that it’s either redundant because it repeats something in the poem, or its “cheating” because it adds a sixth line). Within the five lines, the best tanka typically exhibit a pause or “turn” that introduces tension and the notion of context, where one part of the poem happens in the significant context of the other part. Good tanka also have other characteristics, although not all of them are necessarily present in a specific tanka. In my selection of tanka in the “modern” category assigned to me, I have tried to choose poems of honest emotional perception, and poems that are well-crafted and thus effortless to read. To me, my category could be more accurately defined as “free form” because syllabic (5-7-5-7-7) tanka might still also be “modern” in content and nonsyllabic tanka might still present “traditional” content. I hope the poems I’ve chosen demonstrate at least some of the range that’s possible in free-form tanka, with both “modern” and “traditional” topics. I offer congratulations to the winners and gratefulness for the opportunity to judge this contest.

First Place

feeling cranky

the palm reader

tells him

she’s never seen a life line

as short as his

             Joanne Morcom

This poem was the clear winner nearly from the beginning. The first line, “feeling cranky,” is the key to the poem, and without it the tanka would not portray the palm reader’s emotion authentically. The poem also shows strong empathy for the feelings of another person, for tanka need not be just about the self. In addition, we also feel a touch of humor, something tanka might well explore more frequently.

Second Place

she’s not here

to see it

but after breaking the stick

I perfectly fit the broken ends

back together again

             Tom Clausen

This selection has the more “traditional” topic of love and yearning. In the act of breaking the stick we see the frustration of lost love, and in the act of fitting the two pieces back together again we see and feel a yearning for requited love. Ultimately, though, this is a sad poem, for the object of the persona’s affection is not there to see or participate in the relationship’s metaphorical mending.

Third Place

Where is it now,

my severed appendix—

in a bag

with gall bladders, spleens,

and toes of strangers

             William M. Ramsey

I chose this poem because it strikes me as genuine. Such honest self-awareness frequently lies at the heart of tanka. If we can fearlessly convey our honest thoughts and emotions in tanka, as is done in this poem, then our tanka strikes a chisel-blow into the granite statue of human identity. Perhaps not all of us have had an operation such as the one mentioned here, but we can relate to the poet’s unreserved and sincere question, as macabre as it may be to some readers.

First Honourable Mention

when asked

about her own health

          the silence

          of this small bowl

          of riverstones

             Carolyn Thomas

This tanka says volumes with its silence. Any illness is bound to instigate self-reflection, and here we see that reflection plus a moment of doubt as the person contemplates how much detail to relate, if any. The conversation has already been on the topic of health, but now it switches to the second person’s health. Perhaps the earlier conversation has just been small-talk, but now the discussion becomes more serious. Of course, perhaps there’s no illness here after all, but the silence and implied pause suggests that there is—and perhaps this illness is as serious as the silence is deep. Though we all die and flow on like a river, we leave behind many riverstones, silent and eternal. Perhaps even the bowl of riverstones in this poem is itself a recognition of this fact.

Second Honourable Mention

in a ruined orchard

among the drenched leaves

I found you these

mist-silvered

fat blue plums

             Marianne Bluger

This is a poem of beauty, and thus again perhaps in the mode of “traditional” tanka topics while using a free approach to form. It is also a love poem—the giving of a hard-won gift to someone the persona wants to please. The gift of the fat blue plums is presented with all the beauty of silver mist. We can see the colour of the plums, feel their wetness, and very nearly taste them in our mouths. Just as the orchard is ruined, perhaps the relationship is too, but readers can hope that it is not ruined, or at least mended by this simple but enticing gift of love.

Third Honourable Mention

After

the diagnosis

the taste

of bite after bite of this

buttered bread.

             Pamela Miller Ness

This poem presents a moment of gratefulness. Despite the diagnosis, about which we know nothing further, the persona is grateful for all of life’s simple pleasures, including even the taste of buttered bread. My main hesitation with this poem is that “After” is not strong as first line and “of this” might be better on the fifth, but I take comfort in the poem’s positive attitude.

Once again, congratulations to all of this contest’s winners. May these selections inspire you to write more tanka of your own.

Michael Dylan Welch

Foster City, California

Traditional Tanka

The following selections in the “traditional” category were made by Jan Walls. His commentary (very lightly edited here) refers to each poem by the title each author was asked to provide, but which I have omitted here (and in the preceding “Modern” section), because tanka have traditionally never had titles.

First Place

a sudden loud noise

all the pigeons of Venice

at once fill the sky

that’s how it felt when your hand

accidentally touched mine

             Ruby Spriggs

“Venice” takes the familiar touristic image of startled pigeons simultaneously taking flight, and unexpectedly relates the cause/effect sequence to a personal romantic incident. The imagery is fresh and startling; the content is powerfully meaningful (if not “deep”) at the personal level; and the craft is exquisite—it reads like a tanka, but will be immediately appreciated by any English reader who may know nothing about tanka.

Second Place

You do not see me,

Though I pass before your eyes

Day in and day out

Like a bird building its nest

Twig by twig, making a home.

             Karen Gable

In “Blind to Me,” the unnoticed suitor passes back and forth before the fancied one’s eyes, and relates this “flight of fancy” to the natural phenomenon of a bird building its nest, which ornithologists tell us is a competitive act performed in certain species to attract a mate. The naïve naturalness of the chosen simile is immediate, revealing and endearing as it generates a charming sympathy to the unnoticed speaker, whose reflective tone is more self-mocking than self-pitying.

Third Place

strong wind—

flowers and leaves turn

inside out

a door slams and I welcome

a visit from my mother

             Kirsty Karkow

“Strong wind” makes a humorous, witty and somewhat cathartic association between the strong wind and door slamming on the one hand, and the visiting mother on the other. The gust of wind not only is an omen/announcement of an unpleasant change coming in the climate (outdoors and indoors), but also calls to mind “long-windedness, huffing and puffing,” while the slamming door makes one feel the resoluteness of the visiting mother’s expression.

Honourable Mentions

first snow of the year

party guests cling together

down the icy walk

their voices disappearing

into swirls of pre-dawn flakes

             Sharon Baker

“New Year’s Eve” is a good tanka that is both conventional in its presentation and tone (human activity disappearing into cosmic activity), and modern in its occasion (New Year’s Eve party guests). The mixed sensory modes of “voices disappearing into swirling snowflakes” is also innovative in its visual depiction of silence.

now, for the first time,

my father calls me softly

by my mother’s name—

so still the chrysanthemums

rest in the chipped azure vase

             Carolyn Thomas

In “Chrysanthemums,” the soft, sad helplessness of the onset of senility in the father, and the memory of the late wife/mother are embodied well in the chrysanthemums (autumn, the year and health both failing) and the flawed, chipped vase.

Postscript

The North American Tanka Contest resulted in an anthology, Countless Leaves, published in late 2001 by Inkling Press. In the book’s introduction, editor Gerald St. Maur described the contest as follows:

The North American Tanka Contest

As noted earlier, this anthology has grown out of submissions made to the North American Tanka Contest which benefited greatly from the dedication of two eminently qualified judges. They were assigned the daunting task of selecting the prize winners from a common list of poems, but each judge assumed a different responsibility. Professor Jan Walls, author and oriental scholar at Simon Fraser University, was asked to select the best poems in the traditional category, defined by the 5-7-5-7-7 syllabic structure and the use of traditional topics such as love, sorrow, etc. On the other hand, Michael Dylan Welch, poet, editor and Founding President of the Tanka Society of America, was asked to choose the poems in the modern category, defined loosely by five short lines in the tanka spirit. Not surprisingly, a few poems could be fitted into both categories but categorization was considered much less important than the quality of the poem.

The third place “traditional” tanka was not 5-7-5-7-7, and seems to show less of a traditional leaning in its subject matter and tone, but demonstrates the range of possibility in traditional tanka, even while some of the “modern” tanka also exhibit traditional traits. Indeed, the quality of the poems mattered more than their classification.

—26 February 2022