The Countdown is on to the Winter Solstice! Are you ready?

Welcome to the Tanka Tuesday Poetry Recap featuring the Poet of the Week and the honorable mention poetry that spoke to me. If you would like to participate in this challenge, you can learn the rules in the menu item called Colleen’s Weekly Tanka Tuesday Guidelines.

Congratulations, and many thanks to all the participants! Please visit the challenge post comments HERE, where you’ll find the links to everyone’s poetry along with many of the poems. Stop by and say hello! ❤

H. R. R. Gorman has kindly volunteered to update the Poet of the Week & Honorable Mention poetry from the weekly recap into the PDF Compilation that will be available around the middle of January 2020. If this works out, I will consider continuing the Recap and PDF for next year. I’ve received great feedback about the recap and how the comments have helped poets perfect their own poetry. I think this is a great way to share all the great poetry from the challenge.

Each week, I like to highlight a poet who I call the Poet of the Week who has shared an exceptional message or shown impassioned creativity through words or form. Poetry is all about perception. You may not feel the same way about my choice. That’s okay. Perception is different for all of us.

The Poet of the Week

This week, I’ve chosen Ken G. as the Poet of the Week for his triple Senryu Sequence below. I love how Ken explored the subject of his memories as a humorous, personal event. This poem resonates with us because we can relate to his experience.

Senryu poems do not explore human nature by looking outward at the natural world but makes the “human”, not the world around him, it’s subject.

The object of this form is to offer the image of a human in action, doing something relatable, familiar, ironic or even embarrassing. When writing Senryu, you could choose moments from your own life that have caused you, or others, to giggle.

Remember, Haiku and Senryu are written as personal snapshots in time. As the poet, you’re sharing your experience with the reader.

Haiku and Senryu have certain differences. The chart below will help you clarify:

“Rudderless,” #SenryuSequence

far from flawless,
my memories, homeless
in their wanderings

searching for details
in times no longer ageless,
leaving me helpless

formless, these thoughts
passing through my mind,
almost wordless

©2019 Ken Gierke.

Honorable Mention(s)

If you can learn to write good Haiku, you can write all of the other forms easily. This week, Traci Kenworth has earned an honorable mention for her Haiku.

In this seasonal activity, Haiku, Traci shares her experience in the first line, with “starry holiday.” In the second line, she plays off that mental image of a starry holiday by describing “sliced fruit and cinnamon sticks.” The third line is her pivot, where she shares something unexpected, “tossed on the table.”

That last line is your pivot. It should be an opposite thought or something totally unexpected. Traci’s Haiku does that.

Here’s another test for a great Haiku. Form a sentence with the first and second lines of the poem: Starry holiday, sliced fruit and cinnamon sticks.

Then, take the middle part of the poem and form a sentence with the middle and the last line: Sliced fruit and cinnamon sticks tossed on the table.

See how there are two thoughts – related but different in this poem? That’s how you can tell your words are magical!

“Stars & Fruit,” #Haiku

starry holiday
sliced fruit and cinnamon sticks
tossed on the table

©2019 Traci Kenworth

Remember, books make for good retail therapy! Help support our poets. Please check out the Tanka Tuesday Book Store HERE.

Are you a regular participant of this challenge with a poetry book for sale? Let me know in the comments. I’ll add your book to the list!