NEW HOPE INTERNATIONAL REVIEW

Tanka is older (8th century) and longer than haiku, the more recent form that over the last hundred years has taken a strong hold in Western poetry. It could have affinities with the sonnet, though as with that originally Italian form, exporting it overseas has brought changes to this ancient poetry which possibly had its origins in lovers' elegant thank you notes.

The Tanka Journal is both multinational and multilingual, though most poems are given in both English and Japanese.

There is much to enjoy in this magazine. I was particularly taken by Bill West's TEA TIME sequence:

	  gossamer threads hang
	from cherry blossoms to fall
	  into your teacup
	full of moonbeams held out
	to catch the newly-formed dew.

	The sun
	beyond the ozone
	layer,
	is a nuclear pile,
	which reaches critical state.

	My cat, Tartar
	is very well
	in imitating my way of life.
	So, even tonight
	she makes snoring like me.

This long-standing journal is always of interest. The Japan Tanka Poets' Society will celebrate its 60th anniversary in 2008. The editors have had their fair share of struggles, but have come through very well. The pages contain work from well known tanka poets and also work of a high standard from unknowns. It is a specialist journal, devoted to tanka, and the arrangement of the journal is pleasing and professional.

What makes this journal of high value is that it does not flinch from the moral maze or the humble snapshot of life. The journal is prepared to consider a range of approaches to tanka, so long as they are of high quality. Noriko Sato wrote 5 tanka headed SPRING, AGAIN and here is one of them:

	Cherry blossoms,
	brilliant and gorgeous
	only a while ago,
	melt themselves quietly
	into the deepening dusk

	boiling
	fresh bamboo shoots
	in my kitchen —
	the splendid smell
	of my happy life

	in my dream
	a huge owl perches
	on the back of the sofa
	I try to read its purpose
	in the mirrors of its eyes

We are told that The Tanka Poets' Society is the largest nationwide organisation of tanka poets in Japan with a membership of more than 5,000, and it normally publishes The Tanka Journal twice a year. Members are entitled to submit five poems, and each accepted poet is given half a page with his or her five tanka; some consist of five integrated or sequential poems, others are just five relatively unconnected pieces. Altogether, there are well over 200 tanka. For example, there is a sequence by Tomonori Naruse entitled MOTHER, occasioned by the latter's death:

	My mother has been
	hospitalized emergently
	when I visited her
	she already slept
	in the mortuary

	Morning
	a chorus greets the new day —
	wakening,
	you move closer
	as your covers fall away.

		after a Q & A
		with a two year old
		I stare at the ceiling
		wonder where the stars went
		when I stepped inside

	a dry leaf
	blown by the winds
	of chance,
	settles a moment
	and is blown elsewhere

	this summer
	it rained so much
	in July, followed by
	excessive heat
	in August

	lying down
	in the hope of repose
	I put out the light,
	and then shower down
	the falling leaves

		This morning
		I think of the past 60 years,
		either happy or unhappy,
		snowy peaks far away,
		covered with shining clouds.

Despite its lengthy history (or perhaps because of it) The Tanka Journal is a mixed offering: excellent in parts, poor in others, while retaining a clean and professional feel throughout. The excellent work comes at quality from various angles. Amelia Fielden's sequence BLUE HAWAII WITHOUT ELVIS, for instance, yields the following cool and balanced assessment of emotional poles:

	running in sand
	two guys pass each other
	as determined
	on opposite directions
	as you and I these days

	a wabi mood
	watching the steady glow
	from the charcoal,
	an old man silent
	waiting for tea

	Only the songs
	of insects can be heard
	in the Zazen Hall.
	The sound of Kyousaku
	breaks the silence.

	gusty winds
	blowing all day
	I protect
	my edgy heart
	in a grey cocoon

	Here at the Sakamoto stage
	in Sekimoto
	at the foot of the Ashigara Pass
	twenty-two horses
	were stabled.

	Showing weariness
	by darkening its dusky
	needles, the pine tires
	of the long summer, as I
	see the worn fields' dusky eddy.