2012 Winners
2012 TSA International Tanka Contest Winners
Peggy Heinrich and J. Zimmerman, Judges
The selection of the three prize winners from 193 submitted tanka was a challenge and an honor for us both. We received the tanka identified by number, not the poet’s name. We looked for tanka whose spirit, sense, and sound supported each other to create an integrated poem. We worked independently initially, each creating a long list of about 30 poems whose emotional power and technical skill merited further intense scrutiny. We then narrowed down our lists to about a dozen tanka. When we met to discuss our potential award winners, we focused on poems on our long and short lists. While we had several of the final seven tanka on both our short lists, there were poems only one of us had chosen yet could (in particular cases) justify its merit for an award to the co-judge. The quality of the work led us to award an honorable mention to four additional excellent poems. Congratulations to everyone who participated in this contest and particularly to the following poets.
First Place ($100)
chipped sugar bowl
he’s learning to forget
who did it
she’s learning
not to see the blemish
Dorothy McLaughlin
Somerset, New Jersey
These few words open up a whole story in time and a mystery at the end—who actually caused the chipped sugar bowl and how?—as well as the different natures so common in any couple. That the object damaged holds sugar suggests the relationship that holds the sweetness between these people has also been damaged. Yet the poem implies hope for them; they are each doing some work by “learning.” Also, the hard opening perception of a “chipped” object has become softer at the end, being merely “blemished”—as most of us are. Consonants further support this poem. The liquid “l” repeats in significant words “bowl” and “learning” and “blemish”) while the leading “b” links “bowl” and “blemish.”
Second Place ($50)
a mountain
wrapped in purple haze
if only
I could go back
and misspend my youth
Kenneth Slaughter
Again, time is an element in this tanka. The mountain can be thought of as the past “wrapped” in the purple haze that may have engulfed the writer in youth. We might expect the last lines to be “I could go back/to my misspent youth,” but the poem offers instead the wish to go back and relive his yout’h quite differently (to a Hendrix soundtrack). A serious subject wrapped in delightful humor.
Third Place ($25)
the mail
that keeps coming
after her death . . .
surprised now, by how much
we had in common
Michele L. Harvey
These last two lines surprise us by how much they reveal about the relationship between the deceased and the survivor. They show the sadness of realizing commonality when it’s too late—a situation that many of us might identify with. The interwoven “m” sounds (in “mail” and “coming” and “much” and “common”) and the slant rhyme of “coming” and “common” enhance the unity of this poem.
First Honorable Mention
pinking shears
and euphemisms
my tidy mother
always able to neaten
the frayed edges of life
Julie Thorndyke
Fresh metaphors, both positive and negative, yield a strong portrait of the poet’s mother.
Second Honorable Mention
the moon’s
thin smile as I begin
to write
grows wider
when I mention you
Lesley Swanson
And our smile, figurative or real, grows as we easily visualize this loving scene, especially with the nice element of surprise in the last line.
Third Honorable Mention
blank squares
in the crossword puzzle
my brother left
at the cancer clinic . . .
answers we never find
Kenneth Slaughter
Very fresh; the metaphor of the unfinished crossword puzzle with its empty spaces leads the poet and family to unanswered questions.
Fourth Honorable Mention
braiding
her sister’s hair
after the rape
so many
long dark strands
Jenny Angyal
These few words, say so much, capturing a terrible event and a sister’s caring gesture in its aftermath, soothing and arranging the long hair, if not the dark memories she knows her sister will live with.
Contest Coordinator: Celia Stuart-Powles