Premier Issue of Undertow Tanka Review

     I'm delighted to be one of the contributors of the very first issue of Sergio Ortiz's bi-monthly review of tanka and tanka sequences named Undertow Tanka Review.

     Here are the ten tanka poems that appear this new journal.

another gaze
from a handsome stranger . . .
I seal my lips
on a heart pendant
with my husband's ashes


the way he tucks
my hair behind my ear . . .
for the first time
I feel the sincerity
of a man's apology


belly ache
from laughing
at my own jokes . . .
I realize I've carved
a deeper sorrow


where do I go
without you now . . .
the heavy silence
after I turn off
the oxygen machine


to love somebody

even after death . . .

I keep in a box

a photo of a woman

he once loved


the sound
of him sleeping
more hours in a day
any birdsong
is a sad lullaby


a dewdrop dangling
from the tip of a petal . . .
I try hard
not to show him
my tears


a whiff of hyacinth
by the grocery entrance . . .
this cold winter night
I hope from aisle to aisle
thinking of spring


all the pills
he couldn't take anymore . . .
alone I count
the tulips waiting
to be photographed


a baby enclosed by her
mother's arms . . .
when does a shell
let go of her pearl
 

     Enjoy the full issue here.

 

     Submissions are now open for the 2nd issue. You can submit up to 10 previously unpublished tanka, tanka art, and/or 1 sequence. Send your poems to undertowtanka@gmail.com with the subject heading "Undertow Tanka Submission."