This is the 1st week of the Light Snow (November 22 – December 6) Shosetsu 小雪 Northern Hemisphere & Fine Weather: Shoman 小満 Southern Hemisphere season for Colleen Chesebro’s #TankaTuesday challenge based on the 24 Japanese seasons.
For a kigo word I chose turkey because even though we have spectacular summery weather right now, it is Thanksgiving week–even in Arizona! I decided to try a new to me form, tanka prose. I hope I did it right.
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Grateful for Our Blessings
Once again our family will meet for Thanksgiving amidst the beautiful Phoenix weather. How grateful I am that we can be together. There will be ten plus one this time. The “plus one” will be brought by DIL and son . . . and is due in two months (or so).
Our Wolves, my Red Riding Hood poetry chapbook, was reviewed by fantasy and science fiction writer D. (Diana) Wallace Peach for her October Book Reviews: https://mythsofthemirror.com/2023/10/31/october-book-reviews-2/. I love her review. She says, “these are thoughtful and provocative poems that I found stirring, raw, and deeply insightful. They’re also beautifully written with gorgeous but accessible language, providing glimmers into the lives and stories of girls everywhere.”
It feels so rewarding to have readers take the time to write reviews for my books. Makes me happy.
On the same subject of poetry, I read a hilarious article in The Onion, a master of satire. It’s the funniEST if you know that most poets make nothing from their books as the costs of promotion in both money and time outweigh the royalties. https://www.theonion.com/sellout-poet-made-over-150-in-2023-alone-1851012377
For #TankaTuesday, Colleen Chesebro challenged poets to write three tankas using specific kigo as either first lines or pivot lines. #1: “the first month with sleet” #2: “late winter garden” #3: “blanket by the fire”
Here are mine. It took a little weirdness since we still have gorgeous weather in Arizona.
the first month with sleet
and a howling, freezing wind
first weeks of snowfalls
that melt even as they touch
the earth not yet full-frozen
*
outside I linger
among the curling petals
late winter garden
a place for thoughts of the past
a place for wishes to come
*
in Arizona
we look ahead to winter
blanket by the fire
both cuddling with the kitties
will it come or will fall stay
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I also wrote a tanka about the contrast of our Arizona weather and my family’s Michigan weather.
[Beginning of Winter in Arizona versus Michigan]
A fall breeze upset
my skirt on my daily walk.
Lone sign of winter.
My brother in Michigan
raked fallen leaves for hours.
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My kigo is fallen leaves and fall breeze (instead of autumn wind).
This is the 1st week of the “First Frost” season for Colleen Chesebro’s #TankaTuesday challenge based on the 24 Japanese seasons.
Although we don’t have a first frost in October ever in Arizona, and some years no frost at all, there are other aspects of the season that we do share with the rest of the Northern Hemisphere, as Colleen points out. She mentions Halloween and All Saints. I, of course, think of Día de los Muertos or Day of the Dead. Two years ago I created a nicho to celebrate the day and the lives of my kitties who had passed over the rainbow bridge. https://writersite.org/2021/10/06/making-after-loss/
This year I bought a Count Dracula costume for my black cats. I wanted to capture Meesker’s little white fangs, but unfortunately, he is not a model. My daughter had to add in the fangs for me. Meet Count Meeskula!
My old lady Kana, on the other hand, is quite the ham. She loves dressing up. She does not have fangs, though. Meet Countess Grannyula!
So when I saw that black cats for luck is a kigo I knew I would write about them!
This is the 2nd portion of the “Cold Dew” season for Colleen Chesebro’s #TankaTuesday challenge based on the 24 Japanese seasons.
At this time every year in Arizona, we pull out the “summer flowers,” the annuals that we plant in May. We replace them with “winter flowers.” Usually red geraniums are featured, as they are this year. In the last few years we have much fewer choices than we used to have. This year, we had even less choice–and the red geraniums don’t look very good. I hope they perk up once planted. Today is the day we plant!
The topic of my tanka is our winter flowers.
Our summer flowers
have drooped and browned by the house.
Today we release
them from the earth to make room
for winter’s colors.
I made up the kigo “winter flowers” because it is such a part of this season.
On another note, I heard yesterday that my poetry collection Rooted and Winged, which was a Book Excellence winner, is Runnerup in the PenCraft Book Awards 2023. Woot!!!!
On another note, I don’t know how about anybody else, but I am feeling very drained and saddened over world events. I am also horrified by the anti-Semitism rampant on Twitter/X. I’ve joined Bluesky and am only following writers and people I know. Friends, if you want to join, I have a couple of codes. First come, first served.
This is the “Cold Dew” season for Colleen Chesebro’s #TankaTuesday challenge based on the 24 Japanese seasons.
All Northern Hemisphere Weather is Not Similar
When I was a child in Michigan I loved fall because by the end of idyllic summers I was bored and ready for a change. My neighbor had a huge garden, and he let us harvest his pumpkin patch. He would gather his corn stalks and tie them together into teepee-shaped shocks. The air began to cool and the maple trees would turn red, the oaks yellow. My father and I would rake the falling leaves into piles. Then I would jump in the crunchy heaps and pretend to be Joan of Arc burning at the stake. Before my father lit the piles, he would pull me out, shaking his head at my dramatics. As an adult, I moved out west, away from the vivid seasons of Michigan. Today I live in Arizona, where it is October 11 and still 100F degrees.
Time to carve pumpkins,
Halloween Jack O’Lanterns,
and swim in the pool.
My kigo (season) word is “pumpkin patch.” I wrote a haibun because I wanted to convey more information than I could in most syllabic forms. This is because of the contrast between the idea of the “Cold Dew” season and the reality of October 2023 in Phoenix, Arizona.
This is week two of The Autumn Equinox (September 22 – October 7) Shubun 秋分 for Colleen Chesebro’s new #TankaTuesday challenge based on the 24 Japanese seasons.
My kigo (season) word is Homecoming as in high school and college Homecoming events. This is one I have made up, but for me it represents mid-Autumn, the Autumn Equinox. I have a second kigo for a second poem. I used bonfire because although we had them both summer and fall, the fall ones were the ones that seemed magical, almost mystical.
I wanted to choose a syllabic form that is new to me, and I was intrigued by one that Colleen shared last time.
The kouta is a popular Japanese verse form of the Muromachi Period, 14th thru 16th century. They resurrected the lyrical song as a geisha song in the late 1800s and it’s still popular today. Koutas were originally meant to be sung out loud, like many other old forms of poetry. Techniques like assonance and consonance would fit right in with the form, but they aren’t required.
The kouta has several variations, though always short in only 4 lines a 5th line is sometimes is added. Themes reflect ordinary life and often use colloquialisms and onomatopoeia. The most popular are love songs.
We write kouta in four lines but sometimes five, that tends to celebrate the average person’s everyday life in song.
Colleen Chesebro
The kouta lines are always an odd number of syllables, usually 5 or 7 mixed, such as 7-5-7-5- or 7-7-7-5.
(untitled)
My son in a new black suit, (7)
daughter in semi-formal, (7)
their dates the first future glimpse. (7)
All are shiny smiles. (5)
Bring on Homecoming! (5)
(untitled)
One year we had a bonfire (7)
post our winning game. (5)
The smell of woodsmoke, night breeze, (7)
the high point before (5)
the descent toward winter. (7)
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I looked up toward to see if it is one or two syllables. Two!
