When I read Willow’s prompt for #TankaTuesday, I was intrigued. She asked us to find an old photo that holds a memory and write a tanka about it, focusing on words that evoke the season.
Since I am scanning old photos, this prompt seemed to fall right onto the paper for me ;. This photo was taken in July 1969 at our lake cottage. That’s my mom standing there in the middle of the photo.
green trees in full leaf
against sun’s hissing hot blue
lakewater splashing
around our knees, mom eyeing
the bold goose among the ducks
I really wanted that focus on the goose and mom looking at it because geese are more aggressive than ducks, and I’m sure she was worried about the goose around all the children.
About the goose: I’m willing to hear arguments that it’s a duck, but I don’t think so. It’s neck is longer, it’s much bolder, and the beak is a different shape. You can see the goose in the last photo here, too.
For Robbie Cheadle’s challenge at #TankaTuesday challenge I’ve written a double tanka about my childhood Christmas Eves.
###
Church bells ring-a-linged
We walked through the candy canes
in the crisp-aired park
Flakes coating our hair and coats
Sliding ourselves to the first house
*
Progressive dinners
Mom’s aunt’s house, then her uncle’s
Grandma baked desserts
Worst part was the oyster stew
Now my fondest memory
###
Eight years ago I decided to investigate this Christmas eve oyster stew phenomenon for my family history blog. My mother’s maternal family were the ones who celebrated with the progressive dinners and the oyster stew (a pan of milk and oysters essentially until my husband joined the family and added spices and seasonings). That family was half Dutch and half Pomeranian (an area on the Baltic that was part of Prussia, although the genetics of the German-speaking people (before WWII when they were kicked out of Poland) was actually Slavic. Anyway, the Pomeranian “half” was through the women, so that’s where I thought the tradition must come from. Here is the link to my post. Keep in mind one of the links within the article is now dead. A Christmas Tradition from the Old Country
To my knowledge nobody in the family carries on this tradition. We have all created new holiday traditions with our children.
Did your family have a tradition that seemed to pull the family together like this that is now nearly forgotten?
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
###
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.
###
My kigo is fallen leaves and fall breeze (instead of autumn wind).
Cristina M. R. Norcross, Founding Editor of Blue Heron Review has published one of my new poems in the new issue of the journal. The theme is Heart Source & Haven. In these dark, anxiety-ridden days, what a wonderful issue to read. My poem is about a magical place I found when I was a kid. It was in the woods across the narrow rural road near Caledonia, Michigan.
A Very Specific Opening in the Woods Near Caledonia
The road lilts through the thick woods on either side. There are no mailboxes to denote location, but that heart-shaped patch of lupines marks the entry if I remember to balance across the moss-covered log and bend down to pass under the sugar maple leaves. Follow the burbling creek down past the grasses nestling the tree trunks and saplings and when I’m lulled into the rhythm of the path, it appears in front of me—an open meadow sparkling with sunlight on the kaleidoscopic array of poppies, Sweet William, and phlox—hummingbirds and butterflies—even dragonflies—rising amidst the motes of pollen and seed, a bluebird’s chest pumping its song, and an alert squirrel scolding. At the top of my basket is the tablecloth—red and white checkered, natch—and I lay out the wine and chocolates, the ginger cake and oranges. Later, I drowse with my head on my doubled sweater. That’s when they arrive in their gossamer tutus and green tights, with their silvery voices. In the haze of my half-opened eyes, I watch them for memory’s sake. I will paint them later, as if they are a dream.
I wrote a tanka with Dia de Los Muertos as the kigo word for #TankaTuesday.
[Topic: First Frost]
Before winter’s here
on Dia de Los Muertos
we remember ones
we have lost to the Reaper
and celebrate life and love.
Although we are not in danger of a frost in Phoenix, the days and nights are cooler than they were. When I wake up in the morning, we are in the low 50s. I’ve been walking in the morning to take advantage of cooler air.
This Impressionist painting is in a French museum. I grew up going to the Art Institute in Chicago several times a year. While I’ve seen amazing Impressionist paintings at the Louvre and at the Courtauld in London, the Art Institute also has a gorgeous collection. My favorite painting there is by Caillebotte. Impressionism used to be my favorite style. Now my taste leans more toward Surrealism and Symbolism. Since I have been immersing myself in Surrealism by writing ekphrastic stories inspired by Remedios Varo, I really needed to zap myself into a different mentality first. So I ate some Ruffles and French onion dip. Get it? French chip dip, French painting.
I decided to write a tanka about the man in the painting who is the husband of the painter. I discovered that he was a painter himself, and the brother of the more famous Manet. He apparently was very supportive of his wife’s career as well as that of his brother. I found that to be very inspiring, especially since I am reading a novel about Varo’s life and how the male Surrealists treated the female painters. Not as colleagues.
Here are some reviews of poetry books I recently posted on Goodreads:
Margaret Duda’s I Come From Immigrants (note: book is similar in content to Elizabeth Gauffreau’s Grief Songs, since it is memoir-ish poetry paired with personal photographs)
Colleen Chesebro’s #TankaTuesday poetry prompt for this week is to write a syllabic poem using collective animal nouns.
Topic: Collective animal nouns
A murder of crows
brings me stones and an earring
for feeding their young.
My dearest clowder of cats
whines all day long for their food.
**
I had to look up whether to use singular or plural for the verbs. It was hard for me to determine the correct usage, but it seems that this tanka called for a singular verb.
Cute kitties below are my daughter’s kittens, but this photo is already months old! They are playing Mouse for Cats on my iPad.
REVIEW OF ROOTED AND WINGED
Richard Allen Taylor published a review of my collection Rooted and Winged in the new issue of Main Street Rag. I think it’s a pretty funny review. Posting images of the journal pages.
Colleen at Wordcraft poetry suggested writing a syllabic poem about the mythological Phoenix or Thunderbird.
Because I live in Phoenix, Arizona, I wanted to write about the city. Phoenix was named after the bird of myth, but is often associated with it because of the extreme heat of the summers. In reality, it earned the name because it was a new city built on the ruins of the Hohokam civilization. I wrote a double tanka so I could work with both notions.
With flat-roofed houses
and white adobe mission,
they built a city
on the ancient vill ruins
of the Hohokam nation.
In celebration
of the fiery eponym
the city’s named for,
every summer it burns
to ash, then rises in fall.
###
Fall brings perfect weather, new and colorful flowers, and relief after the hellish summers.
City of Phoenix flag
As we move into summer, though, we do have lovely cactus flowers.
Grand dog Theo (love to babysit him)
When I take Theo out I try to walk in shade because I am very aware of the danger of heat to his paws.
Colleen at Wordcraft poetry suggested this beautiful photo byTerri Webster Schrandt as a prompt for this week’s #TankaTuesday.
I wrote another tanka as I first tried a different form (tetractys), but couldn’t make it work for this image. Though the actual setting was the Sacramento river delta, I saw a lake. That also worked better syllable-wise.
Colleen at Wordcraft poetry suggested this prompt today: to write a syllabic poem using this 19th century painting as inspiration. She mentioned how it looked like the girl is on her cell phone. For a time it was hard to unsee that cell. But then, after I saw something hanging down from the “cell phone,” I realized how important our own world views are to how we see something. As I researched, I read that Hitler loved the paintings of this artist, Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller, and made his work Nazi favorites. But the artist (blessedly) never lived long enough to see the Nazis come to power or to know the name Adolf Hitler. All these different perspectives are where my poem today comes from and it is what complicates the form, creating an ekphrastic contrapuntal tanka string with haiku.
I’m sorry that the poem had to be a screenshot as I couldn’t make it stay on the screen otherwise. If you click on the poem image a couple of times you might be able to make it larger. Please let me know if you can read it or if I need to figure out something else. Any ideas would be appreciated.
Colleen at Wordcraft poetry suggested this prompt today: to write a tanka using our own inspiration.
Since I just traveled to Michigan to visit my mother and other family, I used something from that trip as inspiration. When I was a baby, a friend or coworker created a caricature of my father and me. It always hung in my father’s basement workshop. I spent a lot of time with him in that workshop; therefore, I saw it often. The last few times I have gone to Michigan, I have looked at that caricature and tried to figure out how to get it home to Arizona. Now my mother is moving from her duplex into an apartment in her retirement community, so I shipped it home to myself. I kept the chipped old frame because it is part of the experience.
In this old cartoon Daddy diapers baby me, the tweety bird babe, as if time is paralyzed by memory’s insistence.
