Cool Announcement: Celebrate Tanka Poetry Month with NeverEnding Story

My Dear Friends and Readers:

May is the month of wishes and expectations, a time born for tanka. Every verse should hold the essence of the season: singing in the lilies of the valley and laughing with the nightingales.

-- Chen-ou Liu

Please join NeverEnding Story to expand the readership base for tanka by tweeting at least one tanka a day throughout the month of May. The hashtags for Tanka Poetry Month are #MayTanka and #NaTankaMo.

Please help spread the word about this celebration via your poetry blogs, websites, Facebook pages, and X accounts. And NeverEnding Story seeks the tanka that can bite and bite hard. 

written for Harper Lee’s 100th birthday

I climb inside

my MAGA neighbor's head

to see his world ...

a mockingbird's song

snaps in two through half-sleep

NeverEnding Story, April 28 2026

Poetry acts as a witness in, to, and most importantly, through troubled times.

-- Chen-ou Liu, An Interview with Dimitar Anakiev

We read to know we're not alone. 

-- William Nicholson

seaside bow-windows

radiating the canopies

of sunlight ...

a cup of coffee and poetry

nothing more and nothing less

Gusts, 41, Spring/Summer 2025

The proper response to a poem is another poem. 

-- Phyllis Webb 

A cursor blinks in the white of my screen.

darkness pools around stars

words I never said

words I never sent

NeverEnding Story, March 11, 2026

A writer is somebody for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.

-- Thomas Mann

The blank calendar; even thoughts paused like a frozen screen.

the cursor blinks ...

the weight of another

hazy day moon

coffee ring on ring ...

I type five lines, five lines

then delete all

start again as robins sing

sing up the morning sun

NeverEnding Story, January 30 2026

These days, it’s easy to feel that we’ve fallen out of connection with one another and with the earth and with reason and with love. I mean: we have. But to read, to write, is to say that we still believe in, at least, the possibility of connection.

George Saunders, A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life, 2021.

To conclude today's post, I would like to share with you my warning tanka below for International Workers' Day or May Day

after mass layoffs

breakroom chairs stacked and cold —

on the floor below

robot arms swivel and sort

as boxes breathe barcode light

Chrysanthemum, 36, 2026

Added: The following gembun is a sequel, about the precarious "work-life," to the warning tanka above:

The fan oscillates, its hum a steady heartbeat in the cramped dark.

dust motes

in the slanted moonlight

life between motels

Cool Announcement: Celebrate Tanka Poetry Month with NeverEnding Story

My Dear Friends/Readers:

Please join NeverEnding Story to expand the readership base for tanka by tweeting at least one tanka a day throughout the month of May. The hashtags for Tanka Poetry Month are #MayTanka and #NaTankaMo.

Please help spread the word about this celebration via your poetry blogs, websites, Facebook pages, and X accounts. And NeverEnding Story seeks the tanka that can bite and bite hard. 

shooting after shooting,                        

what's the use of poetry

in daily life?

between finger and thumb my pen

tucked snug as a gun

Ribbons, Spring/Summer 2025

Against the Drowning Noise of Other Words, CLXXIX: "stones and bullets"

a Gazan teen

threw stones that hit no one ...

smiling out loud

the soliders respond with a spray

of US-made bullets 

 

What [tanka] can, must, and will always do for us: it complicates us, it doesn't "soothe." 

--paraphrasing  Jorie Graham

Trump Empire, Inc., XXVIII

think, feel and act

while they're still legal

chant after chant

no more DOGEy business

drop this small dick(tator)

Trump Empire, Inc., XXIX

the White House

posts the AI photo of Trump 

dressed as the Pope

the lingering odor

of this Antichrist shit

FYI: L4 refers to DOGE, which stands for the "Department of Government Efficiency," while L5 is in response to Rolling Stone, Oct. 6 2024: Trump Reiterates He Wants to Be a "Dictator" for "One Day" at Wisconsin Rally.

This is our reply to Trumpocracy: to write tanka more intensely, more beautifully, more devotedly than ever before. 

Changing the world, ONE TANKA A DAY. 

-- Chen-ou Liu paraphrasing Leonard Bernstein

The accepted tanka will be translated into Chinese and posted on NeverEnding Story and Twitter (You are welcome to follow Chen-ou on X at @ericcoliu; 6 Following and 4,781 Followers). 

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

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

We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospect. -- Anaïs Nin

To conclude today's post, I would like share with you Emily Cullen's reflections, "Why reading and writing poems shouldn’t be considered a luxury in troubling times" (The Conversation: Academic rigour, journalistic flair, April 25, 2024)

The American poet Adrienne Rich once asked: “To say that a poet is responsive, responsible – what can that mean?” This question about poets bearing witness and being the “conscience” of their society is something I’ve pondered over the years...

In a world teeming with injustice, it is more urgent than ever to read (and write) poetry that engages with social realities and inequities. Poetry, as Audre Lorde memorably stated, “is a vital necessity of our existence. It forms the quality of light within which we can predicate our hopes and dreams toward survival and change”...

In our social media-driven era, where it often feels as if nuance is in jeopardy, it is timely to think about how poetry can embrace the political while not succumbing to the lure of rhetoric.

Successful poems evoke empathy in the reader and expand horizons of possibility. They make us feel, rather than preach at us. They remind us of our common humanity and our interconnectedness to the world.

Happy Reading and Writing throughout the Tanka Poetry Month

Chen-ou

FYI: For more about the reasons "why reading and writing poetry shouldn’t be considered a luxury in troubling times" and good examples of poetry , see To the Lighthouse: Poetry Is Not a Luxury 

Cool Announcement: Celebrate Tanka Poetry Month with NeverEnding Story

In our social media-driven era, where it often feels as if nuance is in jeopardy, it is timely to think about how poetry can embrace the political while not succumbing to the lure of rhetoric.

Successful poems evoke empathy in the reader and expand horizons of possibility.

-- Emily Cullen

My Dear Friends/Readers:

Please join NeverEnding Story to expand the readership base for tanka by tweeting at least one tanka a day throughout the month of May. The hashtags for Tanka Poetry Month are #MayTanka and #NaTankaMo.

Please help spread the word about this celebration via your poetry blogs, websites, Facebook pages, and X accounts. And NeverEnding Story seeks the tanka that can bite and bite hard. 

What [tanka] can, must, and will always do for us: it complicates us, it doesn't "soothe." 

--paraphrasing  Jorie Graham

The accepted tanka will be translated into Chinese and posted on NeverEnding Story and Twitter (You are welcome to follow Chen-ou on X at @ericcoliu; 6 Following and 4,633 Followers). 

To conclude today's post, I would like share with you Emily Cullen's reflections, "Why reading and writing poems shouldn’t be considered a luxury in troubling times" (The Conversation: Academic rigour, journalistic flair, April 25, 2024)

The American poet Adrienne Rich once asked: “To say that a poet is responsive, responsible – what can that mean?” This question about poets bearing witness and being the “conscience” of their society is something I’ve pondered over the years...

In a world teeming with injustice, it is more urgent than ever to read (and write) poetry that engages with social realities and inequities. Poetry, as Audre Lorde memorably stated, “is a vital necessity of our existence. It forms the quality of light within which we can predicate our hopes and dreams toward survival and change”...

In our social media-driven era, where it often feels as if nuance is in jeopardy, it is timely to think about how poetry can embrace the political while not succumbing to the lure of rhetoric.

Successful poems evoke empathy in the reader and expand horizons of possibility. They make us feel, rather than preach at us. They remind us of our common humanity and our interconnectedness to the world.

And my reflections on the costs of writing in times of crises:

The Costs of Writing

My friend, Chen-ou

I used to enjoy writing these Oliverian lines:

alone

linger for a while

out of a busy day

for the bluethroats

that have gathered among reeds

bordering the edges of the wetland

for a musical battle

to see who can sing the richest note

tacc, tacc and a hweet

Now, in order to hear the birds

the fighter jets and rolling fireballs

must be silent, be silent

I just want to be alive

on this fresh morning

in the world of broken hearts

fireballs drown out

my bloodied friend's question

what use is poetry?

I'm startled awake

this snowy New Year's morning

Drifting in and out of my daymare, he looks markedly thinner and paler. There is hunger in his eyes and ... in his heart.

contemporary haibun online, 20:1, 2024

Happy Reading and Writing throughout the Tanka Poetry Month

Chen-ou

FYI: For more about the reasons "why reading and writing poetry shouldn’t be considered a luxury in troubling times" and good examples of poetry , see To the Lighthouse: Poetry Is Not a Luxury

Cool Announcement: Celebrate Tanka Poetry Month with NeverEnding Story

My Dear Friends/Readers:

Please join NeverEnding Story to expand the readership base for tanka by tweeting at least one tanka a day throughout the month of May. The hashtags for Tanka Poetry Month are #MayTanka and #NaTankaMo.

Please help spread the word about this celebration via your poetry blogs, websites, Facebook pages, and Twitter accounts. And NeverEnding Story seeks the tanka that can bite and bite hard. 

What [tanka] can, must, and will always do for us: it complicates us, it doesn't "soothe." --paraphrasing  Jorie Graham

The accepted tanka will be translated into Chinese and posted on NeverEnding Story and Twitter (You are welcome to follow Chen-ou on Twitter at @ericcoliu). 

on the windowsill

two canaries singing

to each other

I tweet and retweet

NeverEnding Story 😀

my blind date

asks smilingly, what's it like

to be a poet ...

just a way of living both

in my head and in my dream 😂

Chen-ou

Added:

I stare for hours

at a blank journal page ...

it gets longer, narrower

and farther away until

it's swallowed by darkness

Added: 

my penpal's blonde hair

cascades over her shoulders ...

in an accent I read

her favourite poem of mine 

she listens, open-mouthed 

Cool Announcement: Celebrate Tanka Poetry Month with NeverEnding Story

My Dear Friends/Readers:

Please join NeverEnding Story to expand the readership base for tanka by tweeting at least one tanka a day throughout the month of May. The hashtags for Tanka Poetry Month are #MayTanka and #NaTankaMo.

Please help spread the word about this celebration via your poetry blogs, websites, Facebook pages, and Twitter accounts. And NeverEnding Story seeks the tanka that can bite and bite hard. 

a poet's

greatest dilemma

a rosebud

about to bloom

civilians killed in battle

Bright Stars 6: An Organic Tanka Anthology, 2014, edited by M. Kei

Eve Castle

We love to read, even recite, the following tanka by the most famous Buddhist monk-poet Saigyo’s (1118–1190 AD):

even someone

free of passion as myself

feels sorrow:

snipe rising from a marsh

at evening in autumn

(The transience of the world, represented by the Japanese term aware, the pity of things that pass away, is an integral part of Japanese aesthetics as incorporated into Anglophone tanka. -- excerpted from To the Lighthouse: "The Problem of Tanka : Definition and Differentiation" by M. Kei)

However, most tanka poets don't know, or even don't want to know, that the same monk-poet wrote the following thematically significant and sociopolitically charged anti-war tanka with the longest joshi (prefatory note):

In the world of men it came to be a time of warfare. Throughout the country -- west, east, north, and south -- there was no place where the war was not being fought. The count of those dying because of it climbed continually and reached an enormous number. It was beyond belief! And for what on earth was this struggle taking place? A most tragic state of affairs 

There's no gap or break

In the rank of those marching

Under the hill:

An endless line of dying men,

Moving on and on and on ...

Saigyo

(This lengthy and sociopolitically conscious prefatory note establishes the thematic and emotive context of the poem while the tanka visually enhances the tone and mood. Saigyo's use of repetition in the last line adds extra emotional weight and psychological depth to the poem... (For detailed comments, see "To the Lighthouse: Joshi (Prefatory Note) as a Poetic Device" and "Poetic Musings: Dying Men Tanka by Saigyo Hoshi.")

Living in times of crisis, threat and uncertainty, I think we should and can write something new and relevant to the world we live in.  

What poetry can, must, and will always do for us: it complicates us, it doesn't "soothe."

-- Jorie Graham

For we tend to view [poetry] as a witness and participant in one of mankind's major transformations.

-- Czeslaw Milosz, winner of the 1980 Nobel Prize for Literature who reflects upon poetry's testimony to the events of our tumultuous time in his "1984" book of essays, The Witness of Poetry

Poetry can act as a witness in, to, and most importantly, through troubled times.

-- Chen-ou Liu, An Interview with Dimitar Anakiev, author of  upcoming Bulgarian-English Tanka Handbook 

for Lawrence Ferlinghetti, author of "Poetry as Insurgent Art."

Strive to change the world in such a way that there’s no further need to be a dissident. Read between the lives, and write between the lines. Be committed to something outside yourself. 

The Dagger of a Poet's Mind

arrested 

after the Free Expression March

and asked 

if I carry a weapon ...

I hand over my pen

the blood

crusting to claret

on the paper ...

in the jail cell my words

stronger than steel bars

Happy Tanka Month 

Chen-ou

Cool Announcement: Celebrate Tanka Poetry Month with NeverEnding Story

                     Poetry acts as a witness in, to, and most importantly, through troubled times.

                     Chen-ou Liu, An Interview with Dimitar Anakiev

My Dear Friends:

Please join NeverEnding Story to expand the readership base for tanka by tweeting at least one tanka a day throughout the month of May. The hashtags for Tanka Poetry Month are #MayTanka and #NaTankaMo.

on the windowsill

two canaries singing

to each other

I tweet and retweet

NeverEnding Story

Below is excerpted from Angela Leuck's article, titled "Tanka and the Literary Mainstream: Are we 'there' yet?" ("Book Review Editor's Message," Ribbons, 10:1, Winter 2014, p. 74):

An alternative approach is suggested by Chen-ou Liu, author of the blog, "NeverEnding Story." In his June 2012 Lynx interview with Jane Reichhold, Liu describes the current relationship between the haiku/tanka community and the literary mainstream in terms of "an asymmetric power relationship." He believes a "top down" approach will not work; i.e., trying to change the perceptions of those in the mainstream. Rather, Liu supports a "bottom up" approach, which for him means consolidating and expanding the readership base for tanka through online publishing and social networking sites. He argues:

If there are more people who love reading/writing haiku and tanka, the mainstream poetry world will eventually open their main gate to haiku and tanka poets. This approach to reversing the asymmetric power relationship has been demonstrated in the case of the power transfer from traditional media, such as news papers, TV, and books, to online and social media.

Please help spread the word about this celebration via your poetry blogs, websites, Facebook pages, and Twitter accounts. And NeverEnding Story seeks tanka submissions. 

To conclude today's "Celebrate Tanka Poetry Month" post, share with you my interview excerpt and tanka selected for the upcoming Bulgarian-English Tanka Handbook written by NeverEnding Story contributor, Dimitar Anakiev. 

Red Moon Press's tanka 2020: poems from today’s world gives me a glimpse of what is possible when efforts are made to challenge the poets to write something new and relevant to the world we live in.  Poetry acts as a witness in, to, and most importantly, through troubled times. That's what this book does.

Here are five of my tanka for the handbook

a winter fog

smothers the winding road

to her mother's house

the bruises on her face

say everything & nothing

bits of gravel

embedded in blood

on his knuckles

my teenage son says nothing

and I'll do ... nothing

a wind

rattling the dry leaves

on eucalypti --

an ink-dark trace

of koalas

unshackled 

from my childhood beliefs

I'm a passing thought

in the mind of God

who forsook his son on the cross

we'reallinthistogether

            snow

              on

            snow

  onhomelessshelter

Happy Reading and Writing throughout the month of May

Chen-ou

Cool Announcement: Celebrate Tanka Poetry Month with NeverEnding Story

My Dear Friends:

Please join NeverEnding Story to expand the readership base for tanka through tweeting at least one tanka a day for the month of May.

quarantined for weeks ...
my midlife drained of all
but hungry
for these magic words
NeverEnding Story

on the windowsill

two canaries singing

to each other

I tweet and retweet

NeverEnding Story

Below is excerpted from Angela Leuck's article, titled "Tanka and the Literary Mainstream: Are we 'there' yet?" ("Book Review Editor's Message," Ribbons, 10:1, Winter 2014, p. 74):

An alternative approach is suggested by Chen-ou Liu, author of the blog, "NeverEnding Story." In his June 2012 Lynx interview with Jane Reichhold, Liu describes the current relationship between the haiku/tanka community and the literary mainstream in terms of "an asymmetric power relationship." He believes a "top down" approach will not work; i.e., trying to change the perceptions of those in the mainstream. Rather, Liu supports a "bottom up" approach, which for him means consolidating and expanding the readership base for tanka through online publishing and social networking sites. He argues:

If there are more people who love reading/writing haiku and tanka, the mainstream poetry world will eventually open their main gate to haiku and tanka poets. This approach to reversing the asymmetric power relationship has been demonstrated in the case of the power transfer from traditional media, such as news papers, TV, and books, to online and social media.

Liu also says that with the increasingly hectic nature of contemporary society, there will be more interest in shorter poetry, as people have less time and attention, but are still seeking to read something meaningful. He notes that both haiku and tanka have become more and more popular on Tweeter....

Please help spread the word about this celebration via your poetry blogs, websites, Facebook pages, and Twitter accounts. And NeverEnding Story seeks tanka submissions. 

Today's poetic food for thought:

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

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

We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospect. -- Anaïs Nin

Happy Reading and Writing throughout the month of May

Chen-ou

Cool Announcement: Celebrate Tanka Poetry Month with NeverEnding Story

My Dear Friends:

Please join NeverEnding Story to expand the readership base for tanka through tweeting at least one tanka a day for the month of May.

on the windowsill

two canaries singing

to each other

I tweet and retweet

NeverEnding Story

Below is excerpted from Angela Leuck's article, titled "Tanka and the Literary Mainstream: Are we 'there' yet?" ("Book Review Editor's Message," Ribbons, 10:1, Winter 2014, p. 74):

An alternative approach is suggested by Chen-ou Liu, author of the blog, "NeverEnding Story." In his June 2012 Lynx interview with Jane Reichhold, Liu describes the current relationship between the haiku/tanka community and the literary mainstream in terms of "an asymmetric power relationship." He believes a "top down" approach will not work; i.e., trying to change the perceptions of those in the mainstream. Rather, Liu supports a "bottom up" approach, which for him means consolidating and expanding the readership base for tanka through online publishing and social networking sites. He argues:

If there are more people who love reading/writing haiku and tanka, the mainstream poetry world will eventually open their main gate to haiku and tanka poets. This approach to reversing the asymmetric power relationship has been demonstrated in the case of the power transfer from traditional media, such as news papers, TV, and books, to online and social media.

Liu also says that with the increasingly hectic nature of contemporary society, there will be more interest in shorter poetry, as people have less time and attention, but are still seeking to read something meaningful. He notes that both haiku and tanka have become more and more popular on Tweeter....

Please help spread the word about this celebration via your poetry blogs, websites, Facebook pages, and Twitter accounts.

And NeverEnding Story seeks tanka submissions.

Today's poetic food for thought:

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

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

We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospect. -- Anaïs Nin

 Happy Reading and Writing throughout the month of May

Chen-ou

Cool Announcement: Celebrate Tanka Poetry Month with NeverEnding Story

My Dear Friends:

Please join NeverEnding Story to expand the readership base for tanka through tweeting at least one tanka a day for the month of May.

on the windowsill

two canaries singing

to each other

I tweet and retweet

NeverEnding Story

Below is excerpted from Angela Leuck's article, titled "Tanka and the Literary Mainstream: Are we 'there' yet?" ("Book Review Editor's Message," Ribbons, 10:1, Winter 2014, p. 74):

An alternative approach is suggested by Chen-ou Liu, author of the blog, "NeverEnding Story." In his June 2012 Lynx interview with Jane Reichhold, Liu describes the current relationship between the haiku/tanka community and the literary mainstream in terms of "an asymmetric power relationship." He believes a "top down" approach will not work; i.e., trying to change the perceptions of those in the mainstream. Rather, Liu supports a "bottom up" approach, which for him means consolidating and expanding the readership base for tanka through online publishing and social networking sites. He argues:

If there are more people who love reading/writing haiku and tanka, the mainstream poetry world will eventually open their main gate to haiku and tanka poets. This approach to reversing the asymmetric power relationship has been demonstrated in the case of the power transfer from traditional media, such as news papers, TV, and books, to online and social media.

Liu also says that with the increasingly hectic nature of contemporary society, there will be more interest in shorter poetry, as people have less time and attention, but are still seeking to read something meaningful. He notes that both haiku and tanka have become more and more popular on Tweeter....

Please help spread the word about this celebration via your poetry blogs, websites, Facebook pages, and Twitter accounts.

And NeverEnding Story seeks tanka submissions. The accepted tanka will be translated into Chinese and posted on NeverEnding Story and Twitter (You are welcome to follow Chen-ou Liu on NeverEnding Story,  http://neverendingstoryhaikutanka.blogspot.ca/, or to follow NeverEnding Story on Twitter at @storyhaikutanka). The best 66 tanka will be included in the anthology,  and the poet whose poem is chosen as the best tanka of the year will be given a 3-page space to feature the tanka of his/her choice. Each poet in the anthology  will receive a copy of the e-book edition.

 Chen-ou

Note:  Below is the full text of my Lynx interview excerpt mentioned in Angela Leuck's article:

L: What do you feel we as haiku or tanka writers need to do to get these forms more accepted by the mainstream poetry world?

CL: In terms of defining what poetry is, there is an asymmetric power relationship between the mainstream poetry world and the haiku/tanka community. It’s difficult to change their perception of haiku/tanka in a top-down manner. In my view, the most effective way of reversing this unbalanced relationship is to adopt a bottom-up approach; that is to consolidate and expand our readership base through online publishing and social networking sites. If there are more people who love reading/writing haiku and tanka, the mainstream poetry world will eventually open their main gate to haiku and tanka poets. This approach to reversing the asymmetric power relationship has been demonstrated in the case of the power transfer from traditional media, such as news papers, TV, and books, to  online and social media.

Most importantly, living in a hectic society, most people now only have a short attention span. If they are interested in reading something meaningful, I think short verse forms, such as haiku and tanka, will become more and more popular. I’ve been tweeting my published work for two years,  and found more and more Twitter users use hashtags such as #poetry, #micropoetry, #haiku, #tanka, #gogyohka, #gpoem, #5lines,..etc, to indicate their tweets are short poems (For further information, see M. Kei, “The Topsy Turvy World of Micropoetry on Twitter,” Atlas Poetica, 9, Summer 2011).

Cool Announcement: Celebrate Tanka Poetry Month with NeverEnding Story

Intrigued by the 140-character limit – and its potential for instantly reaching new audiences – writers are publishing poems on Twitter. The results are surprisingly powerful.
-- Charlotte Cripps, Twihaiku? Micropoetry? The rise of Twitter poetry

My Dear Readers:

Please join NeverEnding Story to expand the readership base for tanka through tweeting at least one tanka a day for the month of May.

on the windowsill

two canaries singing

to each other

I tweet and retweet

NeverEnding Story

Below is excerpted from Angela Leuck's article, titled "Tanka and the Literary Mainstream: Are we 'there' yet?" ("Book Review Editor's Message," Ribbons, 10:1, Winter 2014, p. 74):

An alternative approach is suggested by Chen-ou Liu, author of the blog, "NeverEnding Story." In his June 2012 Lynx interview with Jane Reichhold, Liu describes the current relationship between the haiku/tanka community and the literary mainstream in terms of "an asymmetric power relationship." He believes a "top down" approach will not work; i.e., trying to change the perceptions of those in the mainstream. Rather, Liu supports a "bottom up" approach, which for him means consolidating and expanding the readership base for tanka through online publishing and social networking sites. He argues:

If there are more people who love reading/writing haiku and tanka, the mainstream poetry world will eventually open their main gate to haiku and tanka poets. This approach to reversing the asymmetric power relationship has been demonstrated in the case of the power transfer from traditional media, such as news papers, TV, and books, to online and social media.

Liu also says that with the increasingly hectic nature of contemporary society, there will be more interest in shorter poetry, as people have less time and attention, but are still seeking to read something meaningful. He notes that both haiku and tanka have become more and more popular on Tweeter....

Please help spread the word about this celebration via your poetry blogs, websites, Facebook pages, and Twitter accounts.

NeverEnding Story seeks tanka submissions. The accepted tanka will be translated into Chinese and posted on NeverEnding Story and Twitter (You are welcome to follow Chen-ou Liu on NeverEnding Story,  http://neverendingstoryhaikutanka.blogspot.ca/, or to follow NeverEnding Story on Twitter at @storyhaikutanka). The best 66 tanka will be included in the anthology,  and the poet whose poem is chosen as the best tanka of the year will be given a 3-page space to feature the tanka of his/her choice. Each poet in the anthology  will receive a copy of the e-book edition.

Hang yourself, [tanka] poet, in your own words.
Otherwise, you are dead.

-- Langston Hughes, 1964

 Chen-ou

Cool Announcement: Celebrate Tanka Poetry Month with NeverEnding Story

Intrigued by the 140-character limit – and its potential for instantly reaching new audiences – writers are publishing poems on Twitter. The results are surprisingly powerful.
... Charlotte Cripps, Twihaiku? Micropoetry? The rise of Twitter poetry




My Dear Readers:

Please join NeverEnding Story to expand the readership base for tanka through tweeting at least one tanka a day for the month of May.

on the windowsill

two canaries singing

to each other

I tweet and retweet

NeverEnding Story

Below is excerpted from Angela Leuck's article, titled "Tanka and the Literary Mainstream: Are we 'there' yet?" ("Book Review Editor's Message," Ribbons, 10:1, Winter 2014, p. 74):

An alternative approach is suggested by Chen-ou Liu, author of the blog, "NeverEnding Story." In his June 2012 Lynx interview with Jane Reichhold, Liu describes the current relationship between the haiku/tanka community and the literary mainstream in terms of "an asymmetric power relationship." He believes a "top down" approach will not work; i.e., trying to change the perceptions of those in the mainstream. Rather, Liu supports a "bottom up" approach, which for him means consolidating and expanding the readership base for tanka through online publishing and social networking sites. He argues:

If there are more people who love reading/writing haiku and tanka, the mainstream poetry world will eventually open their main gate to haiku and tanka poets. This approach to reversing the asymmetric power relationship has been demonstrated in the case of the power transfer from traditional media, such as news papers, TV, and books, to online and social media.

Liu also says that with the increasingly hectic nature of contemporary society, there will be more interest in shorter poetry, as people have less time and attention, but are still seeking to read something meaningful. He notes that both haiku and tanka have become more and more popular on Tweeter....

Please help spread the word about this celebration via your poetry blogs, websites, Facebook pages, and Twitter accounts.

NeverEnding Story seeks tanka submissions. The accepted tanka will be translated into Chinese and posted on NeverEnding Story and Twitter (You are welcome to follow Chen-ou Liu on NeverEnding Story,  http://neverendingstoryhaikutanka.blogspot.ca/, or to follow NeverEnding Story on Twitter at @storyhaikutanka). The best 66 tanka will be included in the anthology,  and the poet whose poem is chosen as the best tanka of the year will be given a 3-page space to feature the tanka of his/her choice. Each poet in the anthology  will receive a copy of the e-book edition.

 Chen-ou

Note:  Below is the full text of my Lynx interview excerpt mentioned in Angela Leuck's article:

L: What do you feel we as haiku or tanka writers need to do to get these forms more accepted by the mainstream poetry world?

CL: In terms of defining what poetry is, there is an asymmetric power relationship between the mainstream poetry world and the haiku/tanka community. It’s difficult to change their perception of haiku/tanka in a top-down manner. In my view, the most effective way of reversing this unbalanced relationship is to adopt a bottom-up approach; that is to consolidate and expand our readership base through online publishing and social networking sites. If there are more people who love reading/writing haiku and tanka, the mainstream poetry world will eventually open their main gate to haiku and tanka poets. This approach to reversing the asymmetric power relationship has been demonstrated in the case of the power transfer from traditional media, such as news papers, TV, and books, to  online and social media.

Most importantly, living in a hectic society, most people now only have a short attention span. If they are interested in reading something meaningful, I think short verse forms, such as haiku and tanka, will become more and more popular. I’ve been tweeting my published work for two years,  and found more and more Twitter users use hashtags such as #poetry, #micropoetry, #haiku, #tanka, #gogyohka, #gpoem, #5lines,..etc, to indicate their tweets are short poems (For further information, see M. Kei, “The Topsy Turvy World of Micropoetry on Twitter,” Atlas Poetica, 9, Summer 2011).

Cool Announcement: Celebrate Tanka Poetry Month with NeverEnding Story

Changing the world one tanka at a time.  Chen-ou Liu

One poem lights up another. W.B. Yeats

My Dear Friends:

Please join NeverEnding Story to expand the tanka readership base through writing or tweeting  at least one tanka a day for the month of May:

on the windowsill

two canaries singing

to each other

I tweet and retweet

NeverEnding Story

Below is a relevant excerpt from Angela Leuck's article, titled "Tanka and the Literary Mainstream: Are we 'there' yet?" ("Book Review Editor's Message," Ribbons, 10:1, Winter 2014, p. 74):

An alternative approach is suggested by Chen-ou Liu, author of the blog, "NeverEnding Story." In his June 2012 Lynx interview with Jane Reichhold,2 Liu describes the current relationship between the haiku/tanka community and the literary mainstream in terms of "an asymmetric power relationship." He believes a "top down" approach will not work; i.e., trying to change the perceptions of those in the mainstream. Rather, Liu supports a "bottom up" approach, which for him means consolidating and expanding the readership base for tanka through online publishing and social networking sites. He argues:

If there are more people who love reading/writing haiku and tanka, the mainstream poetry world will eventually open their main gate to haiku and tanka poets. This approach to reversing the asymmetric power relationship has been demonstrated in the case of the power transfer from traditional media, such as news papers, TV, and books, to online and social media.

Liu also says that with the increasingly hectic nature of contemporary society, there will be more interest in shorter poetry, as people have less time and attention, but are still seeking to read something meaningful. He notes that both haiku and tanka have become more and more popular on Tweeter ....

Please help spread the word about this celebration via your poetry blogs, websites, Facebook pages, and Twitter accounts. Many thanks for your time and help.

And look forward to reading your tanka (see 2015 anthology submission guidelines for tanka )

Chen-ou

Note:  In addition to being translated into Chinese and published on NeverEnding Story, the accepted haiku and tanka will be tweeted and re-tweeted by  @storyhaikutanka (NeverEnding Story's Tweeter account: following: 8, followers: 464) and @ericcoliu (Chen-ou Liu's Tweeter account: following: 7, followers: 1,763) respectively to reach a larger readership.

Cool Announcement: Celebrate Tanka Poetry Month with NeverEnding Story

Twitter can also market poetry in the most unexpected ways. Someone recently bought my new collection, Then, after reading my tweet poem about the snail in my bathroom.
-- British poet Alison Brackenbury


My Dear Fellow Poets and Readers:

Please join NeverEnding Story to expand the readership base for tanka through tweeting at least one tanka a day for the month of May 1

on the windowsill

two canaries singing

to each other

I tweet and retweet

One Man's Maple Moon

Below is excerpted from Angela Leuck's article, titled "Tanka and the Literary Mainstream: Are we 'there' yet?" ("Book Review Editor's Message," Ribbons, 10:1, Winter 2014, p. 74):

An alternative approach is suggested by Chen-ou Liu, author of the blog, "NeverEnding Story." In his June 2012 Lynx interview with Jane Reichhold,2 Liu describes the current relationship between the haiku/tanka community and the literary mainstream in terms of "an asymmetric power relationship." He believes a "top down" approach will not work; i.e., trying to change the perceptions of those in the mainstream. Rather, Liu supports a "bottom up" approach, which for him means consolidating and expanding the readership base for tanka through online publishing and social networking sites. He argues:

If there are more people who love reading/writing haiku and tanka, the mainstream poetry world will eventually open their main gate to haiku and tanka poets. This approach to reversing the asymmetric power relationship has been demonstrated in the case of the power transfer from traditional media, such as news papers, TV, and books, to online and social media.

Liu also says that with the increasingly hectic nature of contemporary society, there will be more interest in shorter poetry, as people have less time and attention, but are still seeking to read something meaningful. He notes that both haiku and tanka have become more and more popular on Tweeter....3

Please help spread the word about this celebration via your poetry blogs, websites, Facebook pages, and Twitter accounts.

Many thanks for your time and help.

Chen-ou


Notes:

1 The haiku/tanka published on NeverEnding Story are posted on Twitter via @storyhaikutanka (NeverEnding Story's account -- following: 9; followers: 257) and retweeted by @ericcoliu (Chen-ou Liu's account -- following: 9; followers: 1267).

2 Below is the full text of my Lynx interview excerpt mentioned in Angela Leuck's article:

L: What do you feel we as haiku or tanka writers need to do to get these forms more accepted by the mainstream poetry world?

CL: In terms of defining what poetry is, there is an asymmetric power relationship between the mainstream poetry world and the haiku/tanka community. It’s difficult to change their perception of haiku/tanka in a top-down manner. In my view, the most effective way of reversing this unbalanced relationship is to adopt a bottom-up approach; that is to consolidate and expand our readership base through online publishing and social networking sites. If there are more people who love reading/writing haiku and tanka, the mainstream poetry world will eventually open their main gate to haiku and tanka poets. This approach to reversing the asymmetric power relationship has been demonstrated in the case of the power transfer from traditional media, such as news papers, TV, and books, to  online and social media.

Most importantly, living in a hectic society, most people now only have a short attention span. If they are interested in reading something meaningful, I think short verse forms, such as haiku and tanka, will become more and more popular. I’ve been tweeting my published work for two years,  and found more and more Twitter users use hashtags such as #poetry, #micropoetry, #haiku, #tanka, #gogyohka, #gpoem, #5lines,..etc, to indicate their tweets are short poems (For further information, see M. Kei, “The Topsy Turvy World of Micropoetry on Twitter,” Atlas Poetica, 9, Summer 2011.

3 Charlotte Cripps, "Twihaiku? Micropoetry? The rise of Twitter poetry," The Independent,Tuesday 16 July 2013

Intrigued by the 140-character limit – and its potential for instantly reaching new audiences – writers are publishing poems on Twitter. The results are surprisingly powerful, says Charlotte Cripps

“I think Twitter poems will become a new form, the modern-day version of the haiku,” says Chloe Garner, artistic director of the Ledbury Poetry Festival. “Poets love writing to different forms, even just as a way of exercising the poetic muscles.”