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The Poetry Sisters’ challenge for January was to write a tan-ku (or tanku), which isn’t so much a form as it is a conversation between two forms, tanka and haiku, and which can be written in conversation between two poets, as our mentor text was. Since our overarching theme for 2025 is In Conversation, this seemed like a good place to begin the year.
This poem spent its first dozens of drafts tangled in unnecessary didacticism. There were lots of conversations in the poem, and lots of (not always nice) conversations between me and the poem. Then the poem and I decided that we’d leave it to you, the reader, to discover whatever conversation these words might whisper to you. We remembered that sometimes you can say more by saying less.
Here’s what the rest of the crew came up with:
Liz @ Liz Garton Scanlon
Tanita @ {fiction, instead of lies}
Laura @ Laura Purdie Salas
Tricia @ The Miss Rumphius Effect
Sara @ Read Write Believe
Jan has this week’s Poetry Friday Roundup at bookseedstudio.
The image is via Unsplash.
A(nother) Year of Reading 
I love this so much! Your use of the word “cleave” is perfection.
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Yes! Leaving space there allows me to imagine that saying a name out loud invokes an answering spirit to cry out in return, a reminder that who/what is gone can still echo as far as the sky. Beautifully done, Mary Lee.
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“imagine them back to life” puts me in the cemetery, and is a perfect call for a writer. And then the hawk cleaving the sky–love, love!!
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This is lovely Mary Lee, thank you. Have you read The Ghosts of Rose Hill? Your poem reminded me of the premise. Worth checking out!
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I’m curious now! I’ll look for it!
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It’s almost as if saying the names aloud brings the hawk into that still place – a reminder of movement and spirit and life called back again. What a lovely turn and spark for your ending.
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The hawk seems to know about those souls from before, perhaps a guardian to watch over them… Love the mystic quality you captured– Perfect image too! Thanks Mary Lee!
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Mary Lee, you do this poetry form great honour with your powerful observations. A brief moment captured with such clarity. A conversation between poetry forms- indeed it is.
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I love the close feeling you’ve given us readers with your poetic telling, Mary Lee. In that conversation, those you’ve tenderly remembered seem suddenly to shout, “Look up!” Wonderful to read and see!
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Mary Lee, you are a master of taking a moment and making us see it with your words. Beautiful disruption of the hawk at the cemetery.
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Wow! I love this! “brown avian blur” is just lovely to say.
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Mary Lee, the poem and you created a longing for more story. Thanks for the conversation.
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Oh, this is so beautiful! The “silence of tombstones” and, bring back to life with the saying of a name. I love this. What a moment captured with the cleaving of sky. Bravo!
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Beautiful. The conversation I heard as I read this was one between past and its (our) attachments and the fleeting nature of the present moment.
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Trying again–it’s saying my comment can’t be posted. Sigh. I love the imagery and surprise here, Mary Lee.
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From Jan via email: I’m feeling that walking in an old “sleeping place” is a calming path worth seeking right now & I appreciate this idea your Tan-Ku, with soaring raptor, brings. I especially am noting your process-sharing, which feels like a mini-class, poem-making workshop. Many thanks, Mary Lee.
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To me the hawk is returning as one of the spirits. I see your poem as a conversation between man and nature, the spirit world and the living, the past and the present. Love the word “cleaves.”
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“Imagine them back to life…” I am right there in this particular moment with you, Mary Lee — this is absolutely lovely.
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I love this feeling of the poem as a living entity, with a mind very much of its own, to be worked with and through! Sometimes it can feel like you’re wrestling with the words, and its only when you let go, that they tell you where they want to go. 🙂
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