Haitian woman,
spawn of powerful genes --
work your spell
use your voodoo fingers
to enliven this old man
Fire Pearls: Short Masterpieces of the Human Heart, 2006
John Daleiden
Commentary: It is hard to imagine a subject that deviates from the tanka norm as much as voodoo. In fact, if anyone had suggested that there might be something compatible between tanka and voodoo before reading this poem, the reader could be forgiven for being skeptical. Daleiden uses the melody of tanka, and he applies tanka aesthetics: compaction, evocative detail, suggestion, allusion, subjectivity, and eroticism. Words like “Haitian,” “spawn,” “spell,” and “voodoo” are heavily freighted with associations that amplify the poem beyond what is written on the page...
-- excerpted from To the Lighthouse: The Problem of Tanka : Definition and Differentiation by M. Kei
