North Highlands, CA 95660

Christine “Chrissi” L. Villa was instantly smitten with tanka in 2011 upon thumbing through a children’s poetry journal. She soon found her voice by regularly posting on Tanka Poets on Site, a Facebook group that she joined in 2013. Her passion for haiku and tanka writing has resulted in the publication of her work in many online and print journals worldwide and garnered her several awards. In 2016 she published her debut full-length collection of Japanese short-form poetry, The Bluebird’s Cry. Chrissi is the founding editor of Frameless Sky, the very first haiku and tanka journal that offers collaborations of art, poetry, and music, available on DVD. She is also the founding editor of Velvet Dusk Publishing, a small printing press that publishes Japanese short-form poetry, cherita, and mixed-genre full-length books, chapbooks, and ebooks. Visit Chrissi online at her Blossom Rain blog, the Frameless Sky website, and the Velvet Dusk Publishing website.

only remembering
how he loved me . . .
in a clear brook
white clouds gather
in my hands

his stand
on chemotherapy . . .
a bluebird’s cry
nestles in the palm
of sunrise

polishing
the apple on my jeans . . .
I know
my mother-in-law
still has something to say