petal after petal
red on red
how many
layers of makeup
to look undead
Tanka Society of America's Special Feature: "Work," April 5, 2023
Lorelyn De la Cruz Arevalo
Commentary: Unexpected yet thematically significant and visually and emotionally sarcastic L5 (part of this rhetorical question in Ls 3-5) sharpens the contrasts (natural vs man-made, intrinsic vs socioculturally constructed/gendered, ...) between "red petals" in Ls 1&2 and "facial makeup" in Ls 3&4.
And the effective use of syntactic parallelism in Ls 1&2 also highlights the contrasts, adding visual and emotional significance to the tanka.
It might be interesting to do a thematic comparison reading of the following tanka:
a young thing
at the cosmetics counter
gives me advice ...
I need cream for my wrinkles
she needs age for her wisdom
The Right Touch of Sun: TSA Anthology, 2017
Keitha Keyes
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