NEW HOPE INTERNATIONAL REVIEW

THE DREAMING ROOM is an anthology of tanka sequences, which break with the narrative style of most modern Western poetry offering instead a 'dreaming room' where the reader is invited to fill the spaces between the tanka (and occasional haiku) with his or her own musings. In some cases the tanka in a series may at first seem unconnected but slow reading illuminates the connections and the individual poems work together to offer insights that flow like dreams. Often the whole sequence needs to be read for the connections to be clear, but sometimes the juxtaposition of two tanka are clear and useful for review purposes, as these from Tom Clausen's A WORK OF LOVE:

	tiny bluets
	all around me
	and over there
	a couple,
	very much in love

	I can't help my desire
	glancing over
	to her terminal
	after little bits of decent
	time have passed

	wide brush
	for sea and sky
	a fine point
	of horsehair
	becomes feathers

	bamboo
	drawn upward
	from roots
	the earth
	a single stroke

	in her rocking chair
	my grandmother
	had a far off look...
	a clear long standing sense
	of autumn for too long now

	a blur becomes an eagle
	above frozen ground —
	in my dream
	images of open water,
	of a child, waiting