To the Lighthouse: Minimalist Tanka, not a word missing, not a word to be added

While in Japan tanka is a fixed form, Western poets have experimented with reduced line length. A minimalist tanka, a subgenre of English language tanka, is made up of five poetic phrases/ku, structured into two parts, and most importantly, one breath in length.

Selected Tanka

I am

I am not

I am

as I walk in & out

of mist

A. A. Marcoff

(See my detailed analysis,  Poetic Musings: Mist Tanka by A. A. Marcoff)

perched

at the tip

of summer

red-winged

blackbird

Melissa Allen

clearly

the eyebrow moon

raised

brings back your

betrayal

Terra Martin

with you
as they say
forever
windchimes
outsing the trees

LeRoy Gorman

aging
with or without
money
the ka-ching
of bones

LeRoy Gorman

snow light ...

a worn page

of Neruda

for the winter

in my heart

Chen-ou Liu

a red leaf
zigzagging
to the ground ...
the sound
of loneliness

Chen-ou Liu


Updated, March 28

foreclosure --
the height of a child
four-feet tall
penciled up
the doorjamb

Dru Philippou

Commentary by Ribbons Editor: ... The first line, "foreclosure," alerts the reader that what follows will be painful. The juxtaposition of the small detail in the last four lines with the first line lets the reader feel what foreclosure meant for that family: the child stopped growing at four feet and the safety of childhood ended too soon... "when I (Dru Philippou) composed this poem, I felt the oppression of the word 'foreclosure.' The pressure exists like a solid structure keeping the child down, cruelly stopping the possibility of natural growth. More logically, 'foreclosure' indicates the loss of a stable home ..." (Ribbons, 13:1, Winter 2017)