Janet Lynn Davis

Former Vice President

Waller, Texas, USA

Janet Lynn Davis lives with her husband (and the local deer) in a quiet wooded community north of Houston, Texas. Since childhood, she’s had a strong interest in the written word as both art form and means of communication. Professionally, she worked for many years in the fields of technical writing/editing, marketing communications, and publications. Janet came to tanka by way of free verse in late 2005. Her tanka and related forms appear in familiar print and online journals, including Ribbons, Red Lights, A Hundred Gourds, and Skylark, as well as in various anthologies, such as the Fire Pearls and Take Five series. One of her longer free-verse poems was published in 2014 in Three Minus One, a book associated with stillbirth, miscarriage, and neonatal loss (and inspired by an award-winning Lifetime TV movie). Janet also maintains a blog, twigs&stones, that includes many examples of her poetry.

I scavenge

perfect pine cones

from downed trees,

unsure if my pail

holds joy or sorrow

Gusts #16, Fall/Winter 2012

symptoms

hopscotch through my body—

I wasn’t warned

my lighthearted days

were impermanent as chalk

Ribbons 9:1, Spring/Summer 2013

strolling alone

on this platinum beach

my whole life

strung before me, behind me

in beads of silica

Tangled Hair #5, 2006