I chase
the remnants
of my broken dream
chilling the night
of your absence
In Sixty sunflowers:
Tanka Society of America Members’
2007 Anthology
Showing posts with label Tanka Society of America. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tanka Society of America. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Navy mom
lightning flashes
on the far horizon
a navy mom
smoothes the wrinkles
of her son’s picture
In The Pebbled Shore:
The Tanka Society of America’s
2009 Anthology, 2010.
on the far horizon
a navy mom
smoothes the wrinkles
of her son’s picture
In The Pebbled Shore:
The Tanka Society of America’s
2009 Anthology, 2010.
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
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.
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.
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