Category Archives: Tanka Prose

Mr Darcy, a Tanka Prose and Musings on Mortality

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Here’s a tanka prose, recently published in drifting sands Haibun (dsh). For those of you wanting to read more poetry, the issue can be found here. Scroll down a bit, marvel at the photo and press the button for Issue 37.

It was originally titled Mr Darcy Grows Old and Crochety but things moved on. Mrs Bennet had an automaton bird in a cage in an earlier version, which introduced the concept of a gilded cage. I kept to allusion to the gilded cage as editing moved on.

This one pretty much wrote itself as I built it from things I knew of the novel and, from the start, wanted to use the word “oleaginous”. The opening line is a blatant case of larceny and the rest seemed to flow from there. After a quick fact check and a suitable poem, it was done. I feel it could have been done a little better by someone with a greater knowledge of Austen, but you can’t have everything. Sometimes you just have to do your best and move on.  It is, after all, light verse, rather than a scholarly study.

Even Gilt May Tarnish

“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a married man in possession of a good
fortune, must be in want of a hobby, for he certainly pays no heed to the wishes of his
wife,” said Lizzy Darcy, stabbing her needlepoint with much meaning, and not a little peril
to her thimble.

“Bingley is much the same, dear sister; if he cannot shoot it, mount it or bet on it, it holds
very little interest for him.”

“You may wish to moderate those words, dear Jane,” said her mother, “lest a passing
novelist should weave them into unfortunate innuendo. I know that I have never quite
recovered from the cruel way that the odious Austen woman quoted me in her novels, and
my poor nerves are threadbare as a result. I hate to think what your poor father would
have said.”

She reached for the bell pull to request another sherry.

The girls rolled their eyes, knowing full well what Mr Bennet would have said.

“I’m not sure,” muttered Jane, taking advantage of her mother’s deafness, “that I shall ever
forgive the oleaginous Collins for evicting dear mama from Longbourn and inflicting her
presence upon us. Even Bingley does not have a good word for him.”

“I, on the other hand, have a very good word for him,” said Mr Darcy, slipping through the
door from the library in search of comestibles, “the man’s a complete and utter . . .”

At that point the blushes of the ladies, and the reader, were spared by the creaking of the
ancient butler entering through the main doors.

only gods stay
flawless slim and beautiful
the twilight of
us mortals dims our eyes
to lines and imperfections

 

No photos today.

Some Thoughts on Poetry and Editors

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I’m still working on the Gladstone story, just not very fast. However, I am writing plenty of poetry. If I were a scientist I would probably put forward the theory that freeing myself from the shackles of WP and numismatic writing, has made me feel more relaxed and has released my ability to write poetry.

However, other variables include lower temperatures, better sleep and reading a book on how to write better poetry. And coincidence. I have always written in a way I could compare to peaks and troughs. However, it used to take me longer to descend from a peak and the troughs just represented a lower level of output. Now I seem to drop off the peaks much more quickly and the troughs are deeper, and are often accompanied by a period of struggle to write.

A lot of the problem, I think, goes back a few years to the times when I had some serious infections. Each one stopped me writing for a week or so, then slowed me down, sometimes for months. Before the infections I used to submit my work on the first day a submission window opened. I like to have things ready. As I slowed down I slipped back until I was struggling to have enough poetry to submit. I often had to resort to submitting things written on the day of submission, and sending submissions to the USA after my midnight, because the time difference worked in my favour.  Sometimes, of course, I came unstuck.

And before you ask, yes, various people declare that you should leave poetry in a drawer for a month, or even a year, before sending it to an editor. I agree. It’s always better when you give yourself time, as early drafts can contain clunkiness, and even downright gibberish.  However, I can confirm that it’s possible to write a poem, send it off the same day and still have it accepted. It’s not a good working practice, but if that’s the only choice you have, you have to work with it.

I also believe that getting in first gives you an advantage. If you write well, someone has to write even better to displace you in the selection process. If two poems are submitted on the same subject, the first one is in a better position for selection. It’s not scientific, and it may not accurately reflect the actual way that editors select, but I always think any possible advantage is worth having.

I’m currently in a position to make five submissions now, instead of waiting until the end of the month. I will do that in the next couple of days and start work on next month’s submissions. Next month is a strenuous month and it will be good to approach it well prepared. I often say that of course, but this time I really feel I can mange it.

Another benefit, (and one I am sure about) is that if you submit early you can get early rejections, and they can be recycled. It’s possible, doing that, to submit the same piece twice in the same submission period. Very efficient and when, as sometimes happens, it is accepted second time around, a useful reminder that all editors have different opinions.

 

Kintsugi – Broken Pots and Gold Paint

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Kintsugi is the ancient Japanese art of repairing broken pots.

It’s fine to start with – it’s about mending broken pots, embracing the imperfections, adding to the history of the object and making it more beautiful. It can be extended to include personal qualities like working with your faults and bouncing back from adversity.  Broken items are put back together and the repairs are highlighted in gold.

In Japan it is an ancient art form.

In the hands of the west it has become a handicraft, the philosophy has been cheapened and it is now possible to do courses and buy kits. I checked with one of the courses. Step One of the course is to break a pot, which does not seem true to the original intention (though there were accusations of collectors doing this in Japan in previous centuries). It is also possible to buy kits, one of which gave me a moment of amusement. The feedback indicated that one of the tea bowls in the kit had arrived broken, but went on to point out that this saved a job. Probably the only time an item broken in transport has been well received.

I’m not knocking it, because it can still produce a lovely and artistic piece of work, but I am pointing out that if you are happy with that, don’t dress it up. And if you want to be true to the spirit of kintsugi, don’t break a pot on purpose. Meanwhile, I got a poem out of it. I may get another. Released from the tyranny of submissions deadlines I find I can, once again, write. Definitely time for a rethink.

This is a haibun which mentions kintsugi, though only in  small way. More of it is about Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera and being married. And, of course, specifically about being married to a woman who stabbed herself in the jugular vein with a piece of broken plant pot because she wouldn’t ask for help. I originally posted a link to it from this post so if you remember it, sorry for being repetitive.

Self Portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird (1940)

 

A Necklace of Thorns

Despite their fame, their paintings and their place in history, Diego and Frida (we are on first name terms in my imagination) still had to chat about the weather, and bicker about who forgot to buy more milk for breakfast. I imagine the weather was mostly sunny, and that it was Diego who forgot the milk. With his affairs and all those frescoes, it must have been difficult to fit the shopping in.

My wife’s throat, spiked with black sutures, is less inflamed today. I check each morning, trying not to let my worries show. Across the toast crumbs, she reminds me that we need more bread today, and I have to paint the garage doors this spring. For a moment my mind flits to a glorious picture of doors featuring Leon Trotsky and Emiliano Zapata against a backdrop of moustachioed revolutionaries. My wife suggests we stick with green.

today
she has her stitches out
I joke I will buy
gold paint to mend the scar
shared history

First Published cho 22.1 (2026)

Zapata and Trotsky seemed to disappear when I wanted them.

 

Another Day, Another Poem

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My apologies, I have been a bit erratic and those of you who notice such things may have registered my absence for part of the week. It is simply a case of me using my time unwisely. I have caught up with some of it but have decided to let slide.

My apologies, too, for two poems in two days. There’s something tedious about poets publishing their own poetry in quantity, but these two fit together so I thought I’d do them both.

In the meantime, I have had a poem accepted, submitted a few more and had a piece used in a local newsletter. It was based on Major Becher. I have written about him before in several places. I really should go back and make a correction – his son was not killed in a plane crash, but in  an Italian bombing raid. Same result, but different details.

I said, in a previous post, I was going to publish my other, unsuccessful, nomination for the anthology. In a number of ways I prefer this one and would be interested in hearing what people think.

It is 105 words and it is complete. That as i keep saying to people. is the beauty of writing poetry compared to novels.

Autodidact with Knife and Fork

Workmen drag temporary traffic lights into place as their companions spray bright colours on the road. An old lady stoops suddenly, pulls a plastic bag from her pocket, picks up the mess her ancient dachshund made. A scowling mother with a double buggy, swerves around the crouching woman, forcing a teenager to jump aside. He almost drops his phone. A shopkeeper and a builder stand outside a shop, point to a green vee on the wall, discuss the leaking gutter. 

as a child
Breughel’s busy peasants
lived on my place mat
the things my father taught me
over Sunday lunch

For those of you who like context, I “wrote” most of it whilst I was in a queue caused by roadworks where Edwards Lane and Mansfield Road meet outside the Sherwood Manor pub. Sometimes poems just come to me.  The people were all people I saw that day, though not all while i was waiting – the men looking at the shop cropped up later. I missed out the blind man who got mixed up in it all as it was too complicated to explain how he swerved round the lady with the dog and thus showed he had more sight than his white stick suggested. Sometimes less is more. One day I might give him a poem of his own.

It’s a very different process to the previous poem, which was much more engineered and less spontaneous.

It was accepted by Ribbons, first time out, though there was a heavy edit – the final two lines (31 words) were removed and the story of the mats was contained in the rewritten tanka.

Again, no photo. I really am falling down on the job.

Sotheby’s Surrealist Auction Sale

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Sorry I’m so late. I wrote some poems, cooked a massive pasta bake, read some poetry, did some research, engaged in small talk with No 1 Son and my sister and generally lost my grip on the day.

So the poetry I mentioned did not get posted and when I go back to yesterday’s post I will have to add a note to say I was late.

Here it is, first published in Quail Eggs Issue 3 December 2025.

If you have a few minutes go and have a look. It is a pleasant, peaceful place. Just in case you are like me – click on he bars o the left of the title and everything opens up. I confess it took me a while to work it out.

Sotheby’s Surrealist Auction Sale

Blue, orange, yellow, red – Warhol’s copy of The Scream. I could do that. Make a copy, steal his inspiration, expending no imagination. Was there a class at art school called Copy Campbells Cans and Make a Mint? The road to Hell is paved with good imitations.

Warhol’s version has an auction estimate of £2 – £3 million. Mine, I expect, would do to line a budgie cage or two. I can see it now, a captive canary – they are easier to paint than budgies – with my copy of The Scream and melting pocket watches draped around the place. Collectors with fortunes bid on a print of a stolen idea. Sensing value in something mere mortals cannot see.

The bidding dies, a new Lot is announced. A porter shows off an empty coat hanger.

“Lot 164,” the auctioneer intones – “The Emperor’s New Clothes . . .”

as a child
I wondered if my blue
was the same as
other people saw
sometimes I still do

Some Thoughts on Poetry and Particularly Tanka

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Julia’s latest vase (she gave the last one away as a present) with silk fritilleries.

I’ve just been replying to two emails from editors. One was comparatively simple, a quick note of thanks for an acceptance. I had an automatic reply by return, telling me that they weren’t taking submissions at the moment – an impersonal response to my attempt at being polite. To be honest, I wasn’t surprised – some magazines are like that.

The other was more complicated. It was a rejection with some suggested links to articles which would help me improve. It’s the sort of response that always invites being categorised as condescending.

I read the first one and it told me that most western definitions of haiku were too restrictive. This explains why editors annoy me by publishing haiku that fall outside the published definitions. Maybe they should take down the definitions hey often display, or display a current one. Same goes for the people who are often quoted on the subject – if your definition is outdated, have the courtesy to indicate this or update it.

As for the haibun article, it quoted a number of haibun. One of the haiku wasn’t a haiku by any definition and the rest all reiterated the subject material, which you aren’t supposed to do. I can’t help feeling that if I’d have submitted any of them, they would have been turned down, not used as examples. I just wrote and thanked them for the feedback and said they provided food for thought.

Email is not the forum to exchange views over something like that, as it could be construed as argumentative and although I have issues with things, I don’t want to start an argument with someone who is trying to help.

This is the one she gave away as a present.

That’s the nice thing about tanka – fewer rules, more freedom, and fewer people writing about them.

 

How to Write a Tanka Prose

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Buzzard pursued by crow

This an answer to a query raised in the comments, but it’s something for everyone to read. Have a go, you might like it.

First, read this. Then abandon thoughts of haiku and haibun for a moment.

If I were starting again I would start with tanka prose. These are like haibun in that they contain prose and a poem, but they are more relaxed.

The trouble lies with the poem. A tanka is a small poem (5-7-5-7-7) according to general wisdom. This isn’t true. That syllable count should be the maximum. You can write fewer syllables.

Some editors like to preserve the short-long-short-long-long layout, others don’t mind as long as it has five lines. It’s just a poem and can include poetic effects, though probably not rhyme. As such, it is free from all the baggage that comes with haiku, and all the conflicting views of editors.

Little Egret at Aldeburgh

You can find tanka and tanka prose in Contemporary Haibun Online, Quail Eggs and Cattails. These are all available online. They are also easy to submit to if you want to have a go at being published.

Rather than listen to me, just read tanka and then practice. If I write ten tanka (which can take between twenty minutes and a week) you can be sure that at least one will tail off without being finished, and a couple will clearly be rubbish that can’t be helped by editing. Even after editing it’s likely that only two or three will be good enough to retain. That’s normal. Just keep writing and eventually you will get there. Don’t take notice of your internal editor until you have written a batch, or you will never actually finish a poem.

Eventually you will have enough to send off. Do it. You won’t be published unless you make submissions.

I send out a batch, one is probably accepted, the rest come back. I add another and send them out again. Usually one of the rejects will be picked at this point. I sometimes send things out three four times before I get fed up with them. By that time I usually have replacements written.

Little Egret – Blacktoft Sands

Next – tanka prose. They are like a haibun but with a tanka rather than a haiku. There is some discussion whether a haibun should be in haiku-like language (ie terse and often slightly stilted). You don’t have that with tanka prose, just write what you like. If you can write a blog post you can write a prose section for a tanka prose.

Then write the tanka to go with it. Some people claim to write the haiku/tanka first then write the prose section. I can’t do that. I write the prose and then write a suitable tanka.

Here are some comments I had recently.

“I think the haiku are not nearly as successful as the prose in your haibun.”

“After a careful review of your poem, I regret that I have had to pass it on.”

“Unfortunately, your work did not quite fit the shape that the issue ended up taking.”

“I’m afraid I don’t get this piece. Is it me or is its meaning or intention too obscure?”

The lesson from those comments is that not every submission ends in success and it’s all par of the process.

Heron

So, to summarise – read, write, submit, expect rejection, read, write, submit . . .

Eventually it will work out, but expect some rejections to begin with. At the start the rejections can seem depressing, overpowering and inevitable. Eventually you will get an acceptance, then another, and it will gradually build up . . .

There’s a lot of other stuff tha goes into writing a good tanka prose, and eventually I might learn some of it, but for the moment I find that the best way to work is to write plenty, submit a lot, shrug off rejection and recycle the rejects.

The recycling is key to my writing – it saves effort, and when a reject is accepted it proves that editing is a matter of opinions and rejected work is not always bad work. And above all, it’s about hard work and  persistence rather than that ephemeral thing we call talent

Good luck.

Cormorant, Lowestoft, Suffolk

More Poetry

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My Orange Parker Pen

This is a tanka prose that was first published in Blithe Spirit 36.1, the journal of the British Haiku Society, in February this year. It is different from the original version, which was about eggs and lockdown and parents. This is about writing a poem and cooking eggs. It deviates slightly from reality as I mention coffee, where we always have tea for breakfast. Tea doesn’t really smell so I took the lazy way out and said we had coffee so I could add an extra sense to the poem.

But first, a tanka, from the same issue. It is based on the annual culling of the Christmas card list as my circle of cousins decreases.

old Christmas card
displayed again
fading slightly
sent by a man
who will not send another

I thought that’s what it was about, anyway. Julia reads it as a story about the Christmas card I have been sending her since 1988. It’s a good one and the message is still relevant. Why waste money, I ask, on another?

 

Life, seen in a Frying Pan

In lockdown, I decided to make better scrambled eggs and wrote a poem in my head as I stirred and learned. It spilled onto paper, took shape and, like the eggs, looked good. On the first rejection I checked all the words and moved them into better order. On the second I added an anecdote, on the third an allegory. At the fourth attempt I slimmed it down.

After five attempts I wondered if it might be bad, or if editors might dislike poems about scrambled eggs. When you think about it, it isn’t a subject you ever see. Eventually it faded from my mind, as poems like it often do. Recently, stirring eggs and making breakfast for my wife, I breathed in the toast and coffee smells and remembered the first line.

five eggs
two broken yolks
a speck of shell
things which are not perfect
still turn out well

The pen that Julia made at the wood turning group

The Glittering Prize

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The world continues to offer glittering prizes to those who have stout hearts and sharp swords
F E Smith, Lord Birkenhead

I thought I’d quote Smith for the title, but make it plain I had done so. I didn’t want you to think I’d just nicked the title off the telly, though this is probably unlikely as I just looked it up and find it aired in 1976. hardly a current reference.

I needed a title with “prize” in it as I just won a poetry prize. It’s a poem of the issue award from Eucalypt, a tanka magazine. Every issue, they have two, chosen by the winners of the previous issue’s awards. I now have a commentary on my work and my subscription has been extended by an issue. More worryingly for a man with a very lacklustre education, I have select a winner from the next issue and supply a commentary for it. The one supplied for mine was insightful. The one supplied for the other winner was decidedly erudite. The one about mine used the word trochee. It’s something like 53 years since I last used the word trochee. I’m pretty sure I only used it once then.

As I grow in confidence as a poet I no longer worry about imposter syndrome and am sure I will mange to write an acceptable commentary. I can blog, I can write poetry and I can write about coins, how difficult can it be? I’ll need a few quotes to fill up the space but as long as I get down to it promptly I should be OK.

In the meantime, I should get on with my medallion presentation and making lunch ready for Julia’s return. The poem was a about the stripy shed on the MENCAP Gardens – that’s the pictures today.

I now, of course, regret not taking a photo of the whole shed instead of being arty.

One Door Closes and Another Door Opens

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More of a wish list than an actual “How to” selection of gardening books

Last night I slept fitfully and slept in late. Julia went to Stamford with my sister this afternoon and I went back to bed again, waking some time after they got home. Julia claims I spoke to her when she stuck her head round the bedroom drawer but I did not remember.

After the quizzes on TV I started typing and reading and generally frittering my remaining hours away. I have just looked up to check how long I have to do this post before midnight and found that three quarters of an hour have dissolved as I answered comments and checked some photos. It is actually 18 minutes past midnight so I have failed to post on Monday despite all my talk of good intentions.

The editor I was emailing last night has decided not to use the poem, which is fair enough. It’s my job to write things that are publishable and she has plenty to do without me taking her time up. I did suggest an edit that involved removing the first six lines and going with the rest, but this didn’t appear to be acceptable. It’s a shame, as i like being published, but I’m not going to lose sleep over it. As I said in my cheery note thanking her for her decision – after a quick edit it will be part of my February submissions. One door closes etc . . .

Books, books, books . . .

Eight minutes gone, 233 words written. It’s funny how I can write faster when I’m relaxed. Given the time pressure of a deadline I start to choke. This is probably a lesson I could apply to poetry. It always used to seem easier in the early days, when my target was to submit on the first day of the submission window rather than the last.

At the moment, I have enough returned poems to make up two submissions for February already. The target is nine for this month. I have  a few others in mind but they are for a magazine that has never yet taken one of my pieces. Sometimes, particularly when I am listing possible  targets, I list magazines that I regard as “hostile” to make sure I keep testing myself. Other times, particularly when I am feeling lazy, or am at the end of the month, I drop them from the list.

It’s a bit like the verse forms that I don’t do. A number of journals take what they call linked forms, which are haiku or tanka, or both, made into a longer poem. Often they are done by people writing in partnership, though it’s possible for them to be done by a single writer. I keep thinking of expanding my range, but it all takes time and effort and enthusiasm, and I’m not feeling that I have much to spare.

Books by Paul Hollywood

I have 88 submission targets for this year., ten more than last year, but I have to be as good this year as i was last year.  And that’s where the pressure starts . . .

Humans are strange creatures. Even when things are going along nicely I have to add extra layers to the general worries. Quite apart from the normal am I good enough? and when will the bubble burst? worries, I have to add to them by setting targets.

Finally, talking of pressure and deadlines, do you remember me joking about how much time I had before my presentation at the Numismatic Society – 12 months, 11 months, plenty of time to start in the New Year . . .

Well it’s 2 months and 10 days away and I still only have a few vague ideas about what I’m doing. I was planning on writing a rough script today but seem to have slept through it instead. Time, I think, for a sense of urgency to appear, ready for next month’s panic.

Yes, I read a lot of low-brow books…