[chorus frogs]

the piping
of chorus frogs
in snow . . .
the winter of my life
melts into music


The Bamboo Hut 1: 1, August 2013

Chinese translation

To see a Chinese translation of my award-winning  "harvest mouse" tanka, please visit NeverEnding Story, the first English-Chinese bilingual haiku and tanka blog, edited by Chen-ou Liu. (Chen-ou has previously translated six of my other tanka, which may be seen by clicking my name at the bottom of his "harvest mouse" post.)

shafts of sun

raising the blinds
I let your words
pass through me—
sunlight streaming
through an empty glass

~Fire Pearls 2, summer 2013

I wake 
to find myself
invisible—
dust motes shimmer
in a shaft of sun


~A Hundred Gourds 3:2, Dec. 2013

TSA Anthology

Tanka Society of America to Publish 2014  Anthology—Free to Members

The Tanka Society of America (TSA) has announced plans for a 2014 members' anthology, scheduled for release this autumn. For this year only, current members will receive a complimentary copy.

M. Kei, widely known tanka poet and publisher of Keibooks, will edit the anthology.

The submission window opens on February 15 and closes on April 30. Details are posted at the TSA website and also will be published in the Winter issue of Ribbons, the official TSA journal.

If you're not a current (2014) TSA member, consider joining or renewing your membership today!

thistledown

reading to mother

on her deathbed

the books I loved at five—

            the rabbit burrow

            safe around us

the shell

of a box turtle,

split open and empty. . .

where did it go,

my fear of death?

footsteps

falling like syllables

in the rhythm

of an ancient rune

I outrun the dark

windsong

under the eaves

of a house

where once I lived. . .

this old bone flute, my body

wind in the grass

on Big Yellow Mountain. . .

over the granite

bones of my mother

I lay my body down

             ~red lights 10:1, Jan. 2014

words and an acorn

searching for words
in these sunlit badlands
I dance
on the razorback ridge
between truth and magic

~A Hundred Gourds 2:4, Sept. 2013

a tiny hole
straight to the heart
of the acorn 
you hand me
the poem inside it


~Fire Pearls 2,  June 2013

A Swatch of Gauze

This is a responsive  tanka sequence, which I enjoyed writing collaboratively with my good friend and excellent tanka poet, Janet Lynn Davis.  We wrote the tanka alternately, each of us responding to the preceding "verse" or link.  (Writing collaborative poems in this way has a long and venerable history in Japanese short-form poetry.)  It was a fascinating process to see the poem emerge in completely unexpected ways.  

Please visit Janet's tanka blog, twigs&stones, to read more of her fine work. 


A Swatch of Gauze

Jenny Ward Angyal
Janet Lynn Davis

the clear wings
of a dragonfly
on my hand
a treasure map
of copper veins

poking 
into the hollow
of an oak
I search for pennies
stashed away by an elf

hidden 
among apple blossoms,
a gray tree frog—
I follow the trill
of another world

visions
of a watercolor
mountainside...
how to get there
when I have no brush?

quilting 
the blue ridge
in light and shadow
I slip through the eye
of my own needle

left right
north south east west---
a feather
on a course of zigzags
becomes my compass

a sparrow
missing one eye
alights on my knee . . .
the distant music 
of a blind harper

rendered mute
by a waterfall—
in a grotto
of lava and fern
I speak in poems 

a scallop shell
bound in a bale
of mulch—
my inland journey 
to the sea

at home
among pine needles
a strand
of golden thread

to bind my seams

    ~Skylark 1:2, winter 2013