Poetic Musings: Canvas Tanka by Francine Porad

Michaelangelo 

tapped his Moses on the knee 

arise and walk! 

I kiss the cherry-red mouth 

on the canvas

First Prize,  Poetry Society of Japan’s Third International Tanka Contest, 1992

Francine Porad  

Commentary: It seems apparent that tanka is poetry of emotion as well as idea, thought and imagination... Emotion abounds here, certainly. But the poem also has other themes relating to the imagination and intellect, wherein begins the hero’s journey toward the “wild surmise” of the mind that Keats knew as well as this Michaelangelo, here brought to such exuberant life. This is a tanka of passion, without doubt, but is it not also a paean to something more than a cherry-red mouth? 

-- excerpted from "To the Lighthouse: Introduction to The Tanka Anthology by Michael McClintock