NEW HOPE INTERNATIONAL REVIEW
An independent small press poetry review
 THE FIVE-HOLE FLUTE edited by Denis M Garrison & Michael McClintock Modern English Tanka Press PO Box 43717 Baltimore MD 21236 USA ISBN 978 0 6151 3794 0 $13.95 email Modern English Tanka Press visit the website of Modern English Tanka Press        Web design by  This page last updated: 10th December 2007. |
THE FIVE-HOLE FLUTE | |
|
This book contains a selection of tanka sequences and sets from the Modern English Tanka Press, Baltimore, which publishes a quarterly journal. The contributors are Pamela A Babusci, Jeffrey Witkin, Melissa Dixon, Amelia Fielden, Denis M Garrison, Sanford Goldstein, Larry Kimmel, Michael McClintock, Pamela Miller Ness, Carol Purington, and Robert D Wilson. As expected from this press, the standard is high. The terms 'sequences and sets' implies that some tanka are offered as 'follow-on' poems while others are offered as part of a 'set' and appear in no particular order. Each sequence or set has a title, for instance LAST RUN TO EDEN, by Denis M Garrison, concerns a train journey: westbound at last all I own in a duffel bag breathing different air I leave far more than Iowa behindThere are some 'tanka sonnets'. They have 14 lines, but they have no substantial 'twist' or other movement expected of a sonnet. This is from SECOND WIND by Denis M Garrison: family album its yellow pages brittle in pallid sunlight thin shadows of the dead oak scratching at the whitewashed wallsThe book also contains joint sequences such as SO THE ELDERS SAY, the first tanka being by Larry Kimmel and the second being by Carol Purington. Just off the parking lot a hawk takes down a pigeon mythology lives on a smaller scale in Northampton A jade Kayak on the Connecticut River like Icarus steering toward danger how his father would have grievedThis book certainly gives a variety of forms, which have been invented and explored. The linking processes that tanka can offer is celebrated. In some cases there are shifts, but in many cases even the titles add to the build up of information. For instance with: my father died again last night — in other dreams grandmother still lives until the day breaksby Amelia Fielden, the title is AFTER FIFTY-EIGHT YEARS. This is an interesting book, containing a range of different tanka-based formats — a trip on the lovely seas of tanka with an experienced crew. | ||
| reviewer: Doreen King. |