Tanka, the ancient Japanese poetic form, has been an important source for modernists for more than 100 years, but never relegated itself to the position of dusty relic. It is alive and vital and producing some of the most eloquent and insightful poetry published in English today. Many thousands of tanka poems are published every year—but which ones are the most rewarding for the readers? The editorial team of Take Five : Best Contemporary Tanka set out to read the entire field of tanka publication for a single year, regardless of source, without any dogma regarding definition, form or content. Over the course of 14 months, they read over 14,000 poems. Famous names and unknown poets from around the world appear side by side in 321 single poems and several tanka sequences and tanka prose pieces. A List of Venues consulted and complete publishing credits are included, along with an introduction that covers the history of tanka and the project itself.
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By liam.wilkinson81
Aug 11, 2009
"Take Five : Review by Liam Wilkinson" It’s no surprise to discover that M. Kei spends most of his time aboard a skipjack. When standing at the helm of a project such as Take Five he steers tanka away from any danger of being swept into obscurity. He does so, of course, with a crew of fine shipmates – who better to keep modern tanka afloat than Sanford Goldstein, Pamela A. Babusci, Patricia Prime, Bob Lucky and Kala Ramesh? From the very start Take Five was destined to glide into port like, forgive the pun, the most majestic of five-liners. Take Five : Best Contemporary Tanka presents the finest individual tanka, tanka prose and tanka sequences to have appeared in print and online over the last year. Imagine the sheer magnitude of the task – the editors were faced with the job of distilling an entire year’s worth of published tanka into a single edition. And with the standard of work being so high in recent times the challenge of settling on the best of the bunch must have... More > presented a range of dilemmas. Today, writers are leaving their tanka ajar. In these brief moments of poetry anything is possible and everything is welcome. For the reader, things have never been so good. For the editor, on the other hand, getting it right has never been so hard. Likening Take Five to the jazz piece of the same name, George Swede refers to this anthology as being ‘beguiling for the beginner and expert alike’, hitting the nail firmly on the head. Since my copy landed on the mat, I have kept the book close at hand, referring to it time and time again for escapism, for guidance and for inspiration. We have, at last, a publication to which we can point and say this is tanka. For a full review of Take Five : Best Contemporary Tanka, visit http://www.themetpress.com/MET/vol3/MET12_final.html< Less
