President’s Message: Acts of Faith

“To write a tanka seems an act of faith.” So says Marianne Bluger in her 1998 tanka book Gusts. “But then,” she also says, “perhaps the writing of all poetry is.” In this act of faith, the poet bares himself, the writer crosses her fingers that the reader will see and feel and perhaps imagine what the poet did. It’s an act of faith that communication will occur—not just any communication, such as saying to turn left at the next intersection, but communication equivalent to taking the road less traveled.

Tanka is a road less traveled. We are attracted to it, as Marianne also says in Gusts, because “tanka can be as concentrated as a head-line, stunning as a full-face shot, deft as a shadow, wild as a scream, or salty and hot as a silent, spilling tear. Though slight, they need never be trivial.” Today, as we begin a new year, we continue together on our road, and continue with our poetry.

TSA Election and New Officers

What does 2004 hold for us? To start with, the Tanka Society of America is having its annual election. The in-hand deadline for the receipt of ballots is January 31, 2004, so why not pull out the ballot from this newsletter, find a pen, make your votes, and send off your ballot today? Yes, do it now!

The TSA ballot, as you will notice, presents two new officers. I’m pleased to welcome kirsty karkow, of Waldoboro, Maine, as TSA’s proposed new secretary, and an’ya, of Prineville, Oregon, as our proposed newsletter editor. You can read their bios on the ballot form to learn more about them, though most of you will already know their work in haiku and tanka. I’m delighted to have them step into these roles, which are perhaps the most demanding in our organization, especially editing the newsletter, since this publication, and the poetry we choose to write, is the heart and soul of what binds us together as an organization. I am also grateful to the other officers who will be continuing in their positions: Michael McClintock as vice president and Larry Lavenz as treasurer. In addition, I’ll continue for one more year as president, and I’m pleased that Kristen Deming will stay on in her nonofficer position as advisor and Japanese liaison (I appreciate her behind-the-scenes advice whenever asked).

Of course, having new officers means that we are losing some as well. Marian Smith Sharpe has served us this past year as secretary, keeping our membership records in good shape, processing orders for past newsletters, and forwarding payments to our treasurer. I’m grateful for her work, and the list of new members and address corrections that appear in each newsletter. She has been vital in helping TSA members keep in touch with each other.

We are also losing Pamela Miller Ness as our newsletter editor. She’ll continue to be active with TSA through informal contributions to the newsletter, but will be handing over the reins to an’ya. Pamela has been editing our newsletter since our organization’s inauguration in April of 2000, and the current issue is her fourteenth. That’s a lot of book reviews and essays and columns and more to put out! Gathering the various news items, considering essays and book reviews, sending deadline reminders, corresponding with newsletter contributors, and getting the issues printed and mailed out regularly and reliably have all been part of her dedication to the job. She has set high standards, and has done a remarkable job in elevating the newsletter to being an enjoyable, entertaining, informative, and aesthetically stimulating tanka publication. Pamela, we will miss your level-headedness among the TSA officers and particularly your leadership in corralling the newsletter into shape every three months. As you focus your attention to editing the Haiku Society of America Newsletter, I’m confident that you will bring the same assets and accomplishments to that publication. And now, Pamela, as you end your four-year formal contribution to the Tanka Society of America, on behalf of all TSA members, I’d like to say thank you. In spades. Your contribution has been second to none.

Members, here’s an assignment: Take a moment, will you, and send Marian and Pamela a note of thanks for their valuable assistance to TSA.

And here’s another assignment. While you’re mailing your ballot, also send off your TSA membership renewal payment. Send them together and save yourself a stamp! You can send both items to our new secretary, kirsty karkow. Her address is on the ballot and on the renewal form. Send in your renewal today!

Tanka Contest Results

This past year has been a good one for tanka poetry, highlighted by the TSA Tanka Day event in New York City. This fall has also seen the results of the annual tanka contest held by the Haiku Poets of Northern California. Long-time HPNC member Lynne Leach served as tanka judge, and you can read the results on page 5 of this newsletter. The Tanka Splendor Awards continued again, and you can read the results online at http://www.ahapoetry.com/ts2003.htm. And every three years, the Japan Tanka Poets’ Club in Tokyo has an international tanka convention and contest. This year the convention took place on November 16 in Bangkok, Thailand. You can read the contest results on page 6 of this issue also. Congratulations to each of these tanka winners! (And while I’m on the topic, keep those pens moving so you can be sure to enter the TSA contest coming up in April!)

How Long Is a Tanka?

In the previous issue of this newsletter, Bill West wrote a brief letter to the editor noting his surprise that the first-place winner in the annual TSA tanka contest was given to a poem with more than 31 syllables (by Sanford Goldstein):

from my hospital window

I see across a bare field

in the morning rain

a yellow silk umbrella

on its solitary way

This poem weighs in at 33 syllables, though personally I wouldn’t have guessed it had that many, as it feels natural and unpadded. But Bill raises an interesting question. How many syllables is too many for a tanka? One could also ask, how many syllables is too few? It may not be merely length that answers whether the poem is a tanka, of course, because a preponderance of other characteristics come into play, meaning that length (let alone a precise length) is not the only characteristic that defines the tanka genre in English. But I would like to offer this response: Though a traditional Japanese tanka has 31 sound units in a pattern of 5-7-5-7-7, and that tanka in English are typically shorter than 31 syllables in no set pattern, there is no rule for tanka in English that it should always be fewer than 31 syllables. The Tanka Splendor Award chooses to ask for poems of 31 or fewer syllables, but that rule applies only to that contest (which is perfectly fine) and I would suggest that it should not be taken as a prescription for all tanka. Though both tanka and haiku in English typically have a number of syllables that is usually fewer than 31 and 17, respectively, there are plenty of haiku that are longer than 17 syllables. Why should tanka be any different, relative to 31 syllables? In other words, there’s nothing magic about 31 as a maximum number of syllables for tanka in English, and what greater authority on the matter could there be than tanka pioneer Sanford Goldstein who won our 2003 contest with a 33-syllable poem?

For what it’s worth, I’ve checked the syllable count of our previous first-place contest winners, and here they are: Edward J. Rielly (2000): 29; David Rice (2001): 29; Carol Purington (2002): 29. I think it’s mere coincidence that each one is 29 syllables. In English, where we can generally say the same things as Japanese but in fewer syllables, I would suggest that we say in our tanka what needs to be said in a clear, rhythmic, and lyrical manner, letting the number and pattern of the syllable count fall where it may.

Out of curiosity, I also reviewed the syllable counts of each of the poems in the previous newsletter’s “Tanka Café” column, and found that the number of syllables ranged from a low of 15 (Doris Kasson) to a high of 34 (Thelma Mariano). Three poems had fewer than 20 syllables (Pamela A. Babusci, Doris Kasson, Michael Dylan Welch), and two poems had more than 31 syllables (Thelma Mariano, Sanford Goldstein). Single lines ranged from 2 to 11 syllables in length (tanka certainly seems malleable!). Here’s the complete distribution of syllable counts from the last “Tanka Café” column (total syllable count followed by the number of poems with that count): 15:1; 16:1; 19:1; 21:1; 22:1; 23:2; 24:2; 25:1; 26:7; 28:7; 29:4; 33:1; 34:1. The total of 773 syllables divided by 30 poems yields an average syllable count of 25.77. While the 30 poems in the previous issue’s “Tanka Café” column may not be a representative sampling of tanka in English, I suspect they come fairly close. A tanka with more than 31 syllables in English is perhaps rare, but the same reasons that allow us to write with a lesser number also allow us to write, on occasion, with a greater number. It’s always the poetry that matters most. After all, as the great architect Louis Sullivan once said, “form follows function.” The same is true, I believe, for tanka in English.

Welcoming the New Year

As we begin 2004, perhaps the biggest tanka news is the publication of The Tanka Anthology, edited by Pamela Miller Ness, Michael McClintock, and Jim Kacian. The book is just out from Red Moon Press, and contributors should be getting their preordered copies soon. (Please see the special offer for TSA members on page 16 of this issue.) Look for the TSA Newsletter to review the book in the near future. This landmark anthology presents many hundreds of tanka by leading English-language tanka poets, and is surely a watershed event for tanka in English.

What else does the new year hold in store? I guess we’ll have to find out. At the very least, the Tanka Society of America will have a new secretary and newsletter editor, and I’m confident that their fresh perspectives will add new energy to the society. This newsletter, a fond farewell from Pamela Miller Ness, offers lots of news, book reviews, a new “Tanka Café” column, fine essays by Helen Robinson and Brian Tasker, the latter originally presented this past summer at our Tanka Day celebration. Once again, enjoy this issue of our newsletter, and may we enter the new year by taking bold acts of faith in writing our tanka.

Let me leave you with another quotation, this time from Jane Hirshfield’s introduction to The Ink Dark Moon. She says of tanka that “We turn to these poems not to discover the past but to experience the present more deeply. In this way they satisfy the test of all great literature, for it is our own lives we find illuminated in them.” Sharing ourselves through our poetry is indeed an act of faith, a plumbing of our past to offer the future. We read good poems to make the present more full, and we do indeed find our lives illuminated in them. Let this be true of our tanka, too.

—Michael Dylan Welch