This month, the challenge that my poetry sisters and I came up with was to choose a poem by one of our sister Poetry Princesses and then “ write a tanka in response or inspired by or in conversation with.”

Friends, I had such high hopes. Because I freaking love tankas, which I have on occasion called “a haiku pulling a trailer”. In the US, a tanka is usually formulated as a haiku plus two lines of seven syllables. So it’s 5/7/5/7/7. Where a haiku is often a snapshot of what is, and should include a kigo or seasonal word, a tanka is allowed to delve into simile or metaphor and explore things a bit more deeply. Which is one of the reasons I love them so.

I was going to meet with my sisters last Sunday to get started. I was going to write a whole mess of tankas—one for each of my poetry sisters. I was going to write a long, thoughtful blog post and have it up for yesterday’s Poetry Friday.

NONE of that happened.

I missed our Sunday meet-up. I didn’t get started in time. There are lots of reasons, but none of them makes me less disappointed about it.

So here I am, on SATURDAY, with ONE TANKA. And I am letting that be enough.

Mine is based on one of Laura Purdie Salas’s “Haiku Classified/Craigslist Ads”.

Here’s Laura’s poem:

WANTED: Wrecking ball

for chrysalis destruction

Reward: butterfly

Here is my tanka in response:

Cocooned from all storms

Autumn winds cannot reach here

Cozy blanket fort

There’s time enough for flying.

Why hurry to meet the world?

I am hoping to write one per day next week, and will post them as I go, tagging the authors of the original poems as I get to them.

For next month, we will be writing Wordplay poems, as invented by Nikki Grimes. If you want to write with us in October, you can check out Nikki’s description on Michelle Heidenrich Barnes’s blog.

To read the poems by my other poetry sisters:

For the past many years, I have been part of a poetry group. Once a month, my poetry sisters and I write poems together. We pick a theme or a poetic form, and we all write our own take on things, then we share on the last Friday of the month.

Only for the past two years, I have barely written a poem, and even more rarely shared.

To quote Taylor Swift, “this is me trying.”

This month’s assignment is to write a wistful poem. Here’s my haiku:

almost time to sing

remember the forgotten

Auld lang syne