Take Five: Best Contemporary Tanka, Volume 4

by M. Kei (editor-in-chief), Patricia Prime (editor), Magdalena Dale (editor)

Contemporary tanka in English is an exciting literature that continues to grow and develop in the hands of increasing diverse poets around the world. Originating in Japan over fourteen hundred years ago, it remains a strong and flexible form evoking profound responses in the reader. Although a tanka may be as small as a pebble, it creates expanding ripples in the mind of a receptive reader, ripples that touch far shores, with the polished perfection of the poem as the still center of meaning and experience. This year's team consisting of M. Kei (USA), Editor-in-chief, Patricia Prime (NZ), Magdalena Dale (RO), Amelia Fielden (AU/JP), Claire Everett (UK), Owen Bullock (NZ), David Terelinck (AU), Janick Belleau (CAN), David Rice (USA), read over eighteen thousand poems to select the best for inclusion in this, the final volume in the must-read series.

Genres: Poetry

259 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2012

About the author

M. Kei is a tall ship sailor and award-winning poet. He lives on the Eastern Shore of the Chesapeake Bay and apprenticed aboard a skipjack, a sail-powered oyster dredge. He now serves with a fully rigged ship. His publications include over 1200 tanka poems in six languages and ten countries. He is the editor-in-chief of the anthology series, Take Five : Best Contemporary Tanka, and the author of Slow Motion : The Log of a Chesapeake Bay Skipjack, a log he kept in verse form of several extended trips aboard a skipjack. He has edited and authored several other books of poetry and a major journal, Atlas Poetica : A Journal of Poetry of Place in Contemporary Tanka. He is also the author of the award-winning Pirates of the Narrow Seas series of gay naval adventure novels.

Reviews

[Yancy Carpentier · Rating 5 out of 5]

Powerful and Evocative! A Banner collection of tanka poetry and prose. The imagery is vivid. The compositions, elegant and profound. Highly Recommended!