|
Art
Stein: Tanka
from above
the irrigated farms’
circular plots
form board games with
infinite solutions.
--from American Tanka #7
my fingers
above the keyboard
waiting—
my indulgent muse
late, as usual
--from American Tanka #7
through the fog
of our last evening
your taillights
pulsing on and off
down the rutted drive
--from American Tanka #13
emerging from
the early morning fog,
ridges appear—
thin islands
in a dense white sea
barefoot
on warm sand
my toes
inches from the whole
Atlantic Ocean
-- from BOGG (UK) #17
Art Stein’s route to tanka runs along familiar lines—writing
and enjoying the short, imagistic haiku, followed by an awareness that
tankas’ slightly longer, lyric form, offered a broader canvas on which
to paint deep, personal expression, acute observations. His poems
appear regularly in the journals which carry Japanese forms in English
and have received commendations in the 2001 and 2003 Snapshot Press
Chapbook Competitions, the 2001 North American Tanka Competition.
Art placed second in TSA’s 2002 International Tanka Contest and third
in HSA’s 2002 Gerald Brady Senyru contest. Several of his tanka are
included in the recently published, The Tanka Anthology (Red Moon
Press, 2003). A semi-retired architect, he lives with his artist wife,
Margaret, in Northfield, MA.
|
