Hot News: One Man's Maple Moon, Volume Three

We read to know we're not alone.  William Nicholson

The proper response to a poem is another poem. Phyllis Webb


My Dear Contributors and Readers:

I am pleased to announce that One Man's Maple Moon: 66 Selected English-Chinese Bilingual Tanka, Volume Three 2017 is now available online for your reading pleasure.  (Note: I'd revised some of Chinese translations. For those whose tanka are included in the anthology, each  will receive a copy of its e-book edition within three days)

The daily practice of crafting tanka is akin to writing lyrics. It connects me more closely to the natural world, and to myself.

-- Debbie Strange

The following tanka is chosen  as the best tanka of the year

migrating geese
writing cursive letters
across the sky
I finally read between
the white of your lies

Debbie Strange

Three tanka of  Debbie's own choice are featured in the anthology.

Please post this good news to all appropriate venues. Your time and help would be greatly appreciated. And many thanks for your continued support of my project.

Look forward to reading your tanka (see "2017 One Man's Maple Moon: Call for Tanka Submissions " Deadline: December 31)

Happy Reading

Chen-ou


Selected Tanka

you were lost
to the night as quick
as this moth
when midsummer haze
stole her compass moon

an'ya

sensing
his loneliness
I hide my loneliness
in the tea cup
this cold afternoon

Kozue Uzawa

no wine    no moon
still
I make my song
from this pool of lamplight
and the void around me

Larry Kimmel

another city
another market
so mundane
so commonplace ...
’til the bombs fall

Marilyn Humbert

before i knew
a thing about war, or
of a bee's sting
i longed to be held
between your breasts

H. Gene Murtha

humming something
strange to me
my mother is somewhere else
the steady fall
of hibiscus blooms

LeRoy Gorman

the doctor tells us
of the baby's heart murmur --
outside the hospital window
snow half way
down the distant mountain

Michael Dylan Welch

lost
in the sharpening
of my words,
I need a strong blade
for this broken pencil

Sanford Goldstein

you speak of grief
as if it were punishment
a curse, a blight
I sing it as a lullaby
for the child I never held

Sonam Chhoki

this war ...
what colour
are the shadows
of guns
or the tears of a widow?

Keitha Keyes

hush at the pond
where you spent many days
angling
your loneliness is still there
among the weeping willows

Djurdja Vukelic Rozic

Milky Way swirling
in martini glasses
with each sip
we swallow
star after star

Pamela A. Babusci

when the sun sinks low
refugees' shadows conglobulate
over the wired border ...
a tender lullaby
softens the wind

Lavana Kray

linden blossoms
softly falling between
our silences --
we are but two strangers
sitting on the same bench

Steliana Cristina Voicu

at day’s end
cows and their shadows
drift in the fields . . .
grazing on grass
tinged with gold

Simon Hanson

out of the flames
still tasting the ash
a Phoenix ...
how quickly the old life crumbles
scattered by wind and time

Rebecca Drouilhet

the calligraphy
of winter branches
under blue sky
everything he needs to say
in the touch of his hands

Susan Constable

his first move
in forty-four years
furniture
bound like mummies
in swathes of plastic wrap

Janet Lynn Davis

We talk about
which one of us will stay
who will go
the stone in my heart
when did it become my heart

Sylvia Forges-Ryan

the stillness inside
the stillness of snow
falling on snow
nothing left to try
but the letting go                            

James Chessing

the wind spins
leaves on the birch
faces
         of sorrow
faces of light

Mark Gordon

observe the butterfly
under glass
a garden
eternal
in its silence

ai li

this beach
charges me nothing
to walk among
the sea rack and
shards of memory

M. Kei

a world
beyond thought
the river flows
into light
like a swan

A A Marcoff

the disease
spreading inside my friend
like a white fern
made of frost
on the window glass

Patricia Prime

endless rain ...
at the sudden news
of your death
I remember the dove
in your last painting

Marion Clarke