Four Tankas Published at The Short of It!

I am delighted to share four of my tankas, Hope, Change, Strength, and Eclipse, are published at The Short of It!

The Short of It is curated by Susi Bocks at I Write Her, a poetic place for crisp writing that Susi describes as “my humanity in written form”.

The Short of It is Susi’s way of welcoming writers into her world. She searches for writers “who can touch someone’s heart in a meaningful way by leaving the reader saying wow, feeling an epiphany or just loudly internally screaming YES! . . .”

This is the second time my work has been published at The Short of It. I extend my thanks to Susi for sharing my writing and for nurturing a community for writers.

Tankas are a form of traditional Japanese writing. They are five lines total, with the first line being five syllables, the second line seven, the third line five again and the last two lines both seven syllables a piece, for a total of thirty-one syllables.

Thirty-one syllables is a tiny little piece in a big story where each word counts. Writing tankas helps teach me to be intentional.

Today in isolation our minds can darken. When we are alone and dusk is all that is on the horizon, how easy it is to lose our visions and dreams and motivation. How easy it is to embrace despair and secretly revel in the moping we want to be rid of.

These are the feelings I worked through while writing Hope, Change, Strength, and Eclipse to reach what is past the endless dusk: dawn. My dawn. These four poems are a journey from one thought to the next.

We must take risks to reach the sunshine. We must walk through the shade and briefly experience the chill. Sunshine is what we hold inside ourselves through our delight in the things we enjoy and are grateful for.

My sunshine is in words. My heart may be raging, the world an uncertain place and my life before me, but I can put all this down in words.

That makes it faceable. That makes me brave.

I invite you to enjoy Hope, Change, Strength, and Eclipse and hope you encounter your courage.

Here is the beginning of my first tanka, Hope.

Though reality

Is often stark there is a

Place where the Queen wears . . . please continue reading here and feel free to share your beautiful thoughts!

Also consider entering the 9th Experiments In Fiction Poetry Challenge. I am judging!

Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

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