I'm looking for well-crafted tanka that express contemporary life and experience in simple, direct, fresh language. I want to see poems free of the clichés and tropes of the past and present, poems that have something to say, say it, and leave me awed in the perfect beauty and truth of their moment. I am looking for work of genius to share with others and to champion and place before new readers who hunger for a literature that matters, that reveals, that gives pleasure and understanding, that draws its subject matter and memory from the human imagination and life in the world --- the world as it is, the world as it ought to be, the world of instinct and emotion, of ideas and intellect.
However the poet chooses to deliver this freight --- in the imagery of things, in argument, in symbol or metaphor, etc. --- I want to see original tanka that are worthy of a thousand-year-old tradition, and that are grounded in the small, the big, and the overlooked realities of the present. Is that asking too much? I'm sure it is. Literature always asks too much, universally, in all cultures. Yet, each month, poems come over the transom fully prepared to receive our whole attention, poems that need to be published and read.
New and veteran tanka poets are welcome. If new, go for the maximum submissions (10 poems) and send me a selection that you feel best represents the range of your work. If you have published tanka in an edited journal, online or print, it is likely I have read your work: Send me tanka that will expand and amplify the cache of your very best work in the genre.
My goal as tanka editor for Notes from the Gean is to build a literature of permanent value. I want to identify and select the work of poets who, while speaking meaningfully to today's readers, will also have something important and necessary to say to readers not yet born.
Michael McClintock
Tanka Editor