Announcement: taking a break

Time for another small break: I can't keep up with things right now. Life has gotten a little wild. So, see you a bit later on! 

What's ours; a new rock

what's ours

isn't really ours …

we stare at plans

for a bullet train

through the neighborhood

a new rock, 

plastiglomerate *

litters the shore—

will the words I leave behind

also survive the seas?

* melted plastic trash mixed with beach sediment and debris

—both of these—red lights, June 2015

Announcement: Tanka Society of America Events

Tanka poets, please be reminded of the 2015 TSA members' anthology and other upcoming events and deadlines. For details, click on the website links below or refer to the spring/summer issue of Ribbons.

Fall Ribbons, including Tanka Café—August 31 (deadline).

TSA 2015 Members' Anthology—September 1–30. Send 5 to 10 unpublished tanka to our editor, Claire Everett. All current-year TSA members are eligible to participate. (Please consider joining or renewing your membership if you haven't done so.) We hope you can join us on the pages of this year's anthology. 

Tanka Sunday 2015 (free)—October 18, Desmond Hotel, Albany, NY. 

Tanka Prose Contest (free)—October 1–31. 

Crayon-thick lines

crayon-thick lines

of orange and blue—

her image of me

far more vivid

than I really am

—Ribbons, "Tanka Cafe," Fall 2013

Drawing by my niece Abby, circa 2010. That's me beside the tent
that I live in. I can't remember if the tent was on fire or not.

Announcement: 2015 Sanford Goldstein International Tanka Contest Results

Please see the Tanka Society of America website for a list of the winning poems from the 2015 Sanford Goldstein International Tanka Contest! The winners were selected by judges Carole MacRury and Laura Maffei from a pool of 499 entries. Congratulations to these poets:

First Place: Ken Slaughter 

Second Place: José Angel Araguz 

Third Place: Susan Burch 

Honorable Mentions: Dawn Manning, David Terelinck, James Chessing, and Ken Slaughter (2).

The complete report with the judges' comments will be published in the fall 2015 issue of Ribbons as well as later on the website.

Shards of rainbow

shards of rainbow
spattered across the floor. . .
this pause
in my afternoon
to study the hues

—Simply Haiku, Spring 2008, vol 6 no 1