Take Five: Best Contemporary Tanka Volume 2

Editors, M. Kei, editor-in-chief, Sanford Goldstein, Patricia Prime, Kala Ramesh, Alexis Rotella & Angela Leuck, read all contemporary tanka published in English during 2009, over 16,000 poems. Sources included tanka journals, social media, musical performances, chapbooks & many other formats. The result is Take Five: Best Contemporary Tanka, Vol. Two, showcasing tanka, tanka prose & tanka sequences by 140 poets from over a dozen countries. Originating in Japan over 1,400 years ago, tanka has survived and evolved due to its strength and flexibility. Each tanka is as complete as a pebble, yet like a pebble thrown into the still pond of a receptive mind, it becomes the center of ever widening ripples. This is a most powerful kind of poetry that can span the gap between nations & meld itself with local traditions to provide a new—yet ancient—way to engage the world.