Embedded Files
President’s Message:
First published in the Tanka Society of America’s TSA Newsletter 1:1, Autumn 2000, pages 1 and 10. Originally written in August of 2000 in Foster City, California. For some years I had hoped for an organization like the Tanka Society of America and finally decided to start the organization myself. After originally planning to have the first meeting in California, I asked if I could have a meeting as part of the Global Haiku Festival at Millikin University in Decatur, Illinois in April of 2000. I arranged and led the inaugural meeting, proposed the group’s name and structure, and was elected as the organization’s first president. Prior to the meeting, I asked Pamela Miller Ness if she would be newsletter editor, and Paul O. Williams if he would be vice president, to which they both agreed. Two attendees at the first meeting volunteered to be secretary and treasurer, Job Conger and Larry Lavenz. The following was the first message I wrote as president for the inaugural issue of the Tanka Society of America newsletter. Please note that postal addresses and website links are no longer correct.
Welcome to the Tanka Society of America’s premier newsletter.
Our new society was formed and its first officers elected on Friday, April 14, 2000, at the Global Haiku Festival at Millikin University in Decatur, Illinois. Those present for the formation meeting were Randy Brooks, Naomi Y. Brown, David Cobb, Ellen Compton, Job Conger, Penny Harter, William J. Higginson, Larry Lavenz, Pamela Miller Ness, Michael Nickels-Wisdom, Chris Spindel, Celia Stuart-Powles, Michael Dylan Welch, and Paul O. Williams. Many others were present for part of the meeting, and dozens more were not able to be present in person but expressed interest in the society and opinions on agenda items through email or by letter. Everyone who joins the Tanka Society of America by December 31, 2000 will be considered charter members. My goal is for the society to have a hundred members by the end of this year. We’re already more than half the way there.
The Tanka Society of America aims to further the reading, writing, understanding, promotion, and enjoyment of tanka poetry in English. The TSA Newsletter is our chief means of disseminating tanka-related information to all society members, and its editor counts on receiving your news items and suggestions to help make this newsletter a success.
The entire TSA executive committee also counts on your input and support as we develop the society, seek new members, and do what we can to promote tanka. The society is modeled after the Haiku Society of America, which formed in 1968. Our society is setting an agenda to hold meetings and contests, and increase communication and interaction among everyone interested in tanka. Each newsletter will list names and addresses of new members, and we encourage you to connect with each other. In addition, we have already held one meeting in Washington, D.C. on June 17, 2000 and plan another one in New York City on September 10th. We’ll let you know about plans for future meetings. For now, though, please note that this newsletter is intended as the primary means for interaction among TSA members rather than meetings.
At present the newsletter does not solicit unpublished poems. Instead, or at least until TSA has enough members to financially sustain its own journal, we encourage you to subscribe to and submit poems to existing tanka journals, such as Laura Maffei’s American Tanka (S.A.S.E. to P.O. Box 120-024, Staten Island, NY 10312, USA / www.americantanka.com), John Barlow’s Tangled Hair (S.A.S.E. with IRC to P.O. Box 35, Sefton Park, Liverpool, L17 3EG, England / www.mccoy.co.uk/snapshots), and Jane and Werner Reichhold’s Lynx (P.O. Box 1250, Gualala, CA 95445, USA / www.ahapoetry.com). I also encourage you to join the Japan Tanka Poets Club (Nihon Kajin Club, Shuei Building 2F, 1-12-5, Higashi-gotanda, Shinagawa-ku, Tokyo 141-0022, Japan / www.mmjp.or.jp/kajinclub) and subscribe to their Tanka Journal. On September 27, 2000, the Japan Tanka Poets Club will be sponsoring the Third International Tanka Convention in Vancouver, British Columbia, at which the TSA will be officially represented.
One activity now underway is the Tanka Society of America international tanka contest. You can read more about the contest on page 3. The deadline for this first contest is November 30, 2000, but beginning in 2001 the deadline will be April 30th. Please keep this annual contest in mind, and remember that entering a contest such as this not only promotes tanka, but also helps the society keep membership dues to a minimum.
We have much to celebrate with the formation of the Tanka Society of America. In Japan, tanka has enjoyed a much longer history than haiku. In English, it’s not tanka but haiku that is much better known—tanka has not shared nearly the same limelight. But now, with the TSA, we can focus increased attention on this revered genre of poetry. We have many early and noted writers of tanka in English in the last few decades—such as Lucille M. Nixon, Sanford Goldstein, and Pat Shelley—to thank for paving the tanka way, along with many translators and other fine poets. We are now blessed with many fine tanka poets in this country and elsewhere, and look forward to supporting this talent and nurturing new voices also. The Tanka Society of America welcomes your continuing support and participation.
—Michael Dylan Welch
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