Tanka Poems

Poet and Tanka
by Victor P. Gendrano

Reprinted from Ribbons, Tanka Society of America Journal,
Vol. 3, No. 2, Summer 2007


Most of my tanka poems has a pervading sense of pain, loss, and loneliness, no doubt engendered by the loss of my wife of forty-five years. That night, on our way home from the hospital, I noticed the almost full moon and wrote this afterwards.


the August moon
starts to wane
chilling the night
my wife returns
to her Creator


For me, the tanka form is a welcome change from the brevity of the three-lined haiku which I learned to write first, with its restrained, unstated, and reigned-in personal emotions. The additional two lines can further amplify what you are trying to say with the gamut of emotions you can muster.

While the days passed by so slowly, I felt, I wrote poems everyday, in hindsight, as a form of therapy and to preserve my sanity. Also, the very act of writing has a cathartic effect on my psyche, not unlike that of confronting and disdaining your demons.


the rustle
of fallen leaves muffles
the sound of your absence
as long nights sharpen
the barbs of autumn chill


In the over ten years that my wife was in and out of the hospital, I wrote about this seemingly ordinary clinical procedure.


she nonchalantly
offers her arm
for the nurse’s needle
as I look away
she feels my pain


Much much later, I decided to join the land of the living while trying to cope and adjust to a life without a partner.


warmth of her smile
in that winter weekend
fantasy fling
am I ready or a fool
to fall in love again



I started writing poems when I was in high school, but in Tagalog, the major language of the Philippines. I am a poet in exile as I was born and raised in the Philippines. English is my second language.

I get ideas for my poems from personal experiences and reactions from what's happening around me. My poems range from the serious to the mundane, from the philosophical to the humorous.


in search of light
a moth plunges
into the flame
the heat and passion
of love unfolding


football fever
she hugs his pillow
for company
their bed grows colder
each passing game


Editor’s note:

Gendrano published a book titled, Rustle of bamboo leaves: selected haiku and other poems, in November 2005. Earlier, for 13 years, from 1987 to 1999, he published and edited Heritage magazine, an English-language quarterly dealing with Filipino culture, arts and letters, and the Filipino American experience.

On writing cinquain and other poems

To illlustrate how and why I write poems, I wrote this cinquain in April 20, 2006 which I posted in an internet forum of which I am currently an inactive member. I included some readers’ comments and my responses to them.

- - - - - - - - - -

I just attended a funeral yesterday of the father of my son-in-law. A few days earlier, I heard that an old friend whose wife passed away barely a year ago also died. The sad thing is I only learned about it after he was already cremated. Double sigh.

Passing through

two deaths
in a long week
a tacit reminder
that we are mere sojourners here
on earth

Comments:
... a nice empirical cinquain....so often our life experiences good and sad can bring an inspiration of the realities we all must face and thus some good can arise therefrom even if it is just a poem that strikes a chord in others’ lives; it reminds [me that] we share this global village together even when separated by oceans.

-Brian

Yes Brian,

Poetry binds us all together wherever we might be. There is also such a thing as the healing power of poetry, at least in my experience. In the process of expressing the depths of emotions and feelings in my poem, there inevitably follows a release of tension which I liken to a cleansing or purging process. Then I feel I am whole again or going to be and I can stare at my inner demon eye to eye without trepidation.

Thanks so much for your comments.

Vic Gendrano


Vic your comments on the healing power of poetry and how it binds us together are two further thought-provoking aspects that will add to the ongoing Why Poetry debate...

- Brian


Dear Vic,
 
First, please accept my sympathy.  It's hard to lose people we love. Your poem is a wonderful reflection--a reminder not to take life for granted.  The word "sojourners" is perfect for this cinquain.  Your emotion comes through [in] this short poem. 

  - Karen

Hi Karen,

Thank you very much for your sympathy and gracious comments. Sometimes I get so involved in my poems that it's hard to be objective. Like they say, I wear my emotions on my sleeves. In a way, this cinquain is a revisit to my old Heart stroke poem I wrote sometime ago while I was recuperating from what I overheard the doctor said was mild stroke. It happened soon after the passing
of my wife.

Vic Gendrano

Dear Vic,
 
I like poetry that comes from the heart. It's the depth and emotion that capture me in a way superficial pieces never will. Your poem allows the reader to ponder and take something away from the experience--something difficult to achieve in a short poem. Thanks again for sharing it.
 
Karen