Tanka Hangout Submission Guidelines

Welcome to the Tanka Hangout

A meet-up place for members to share tanka.

Submissions are open to all members of the Tanka Society of America. If you’re not currently a member, and would like to participate, please see How to Join or Renew. Michele L. Harvey, the editor of the Tanka Hangout, will select sixty to ninety of the best poems to be published in each issue of TSA’s journal, Ribbons.

Prompts

Each edition of Tanka Hangout seeks tanka inspired by a prompt, presented here and in Ribbons.

For the Fall/Winter 2026 issue

(submissions due by June 30, 2026)

What’s Unseen:

“There’s more things on heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt on in your philosophy.”

—Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 5

For the shorter days of Fall/Winter 2026, what’s on the dark side of your moon? What’s invisible in your life, but affects it, nonetheless? What animates and energizes you? Is it the wind, your emotions, thoughts, intuition, the vibe swirling around you? Or perhaps it’s simply what’s absent and felt by its lack. Perhaps something just beyond understanding, outside of conscious reach? Open your mind to what’s mysterious in your life or that which is ordinary in its constancy, but not easily revealed. Submit one tanka on what’s hidden behind the curtain, in your life.

See past prompts.

Guidelines

Members are invited to send one original, unpublished tanka on the assigned prompt for each edition of the Tanka Hangout. Restrictions are few, and almost any treatment of the tanka form is acceptable, but please submit your very best effort. The tanka will be read for thematic content, the depth and layering of meaning (often called “dreaming room”), vivid imagery, and suggested emotion. Any comments that accompany your submission may also be considered, in part or in full, for publication, but please be sure your tanka does not rely on these comments.

Send your single tanka submission, in the body of an email, to Michele L. Harvey at michelelouiseharvey@gmail.com with the subject heading “Tanka Hangout.” She will acknowledge receipt of all email submissions, and if your poem is selected for publication in Tanka Hangout, she will notify you within a month after the submission deadline.

We prefer email submissions, but you may also submit by postal mail:

Michele L. Harvey, Tanka Hangout Editor

1604 Poolville Hubbardsville Rd.

Hamilton, NY 13346 USA

Please, include your full name as you wish it to appear beneath the poem, followed by your town or city of residence and its location (state/province and country).

In-hand submission deadlines are as follows:

- January 31: Spring/Summer issue
- June 30: Fall/Winter issue

Member’s Choice Tanka

In each issue, the Tanka Hangout honors one poet with the Member’s Choice Tanka award of $25, chosen from tanka published in the previous issue. The winner is invited to select the next Member’s Choice Tanka and commend another two or three, offering comments on the tanka and the reasons for choosing them.

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