Jane Reichhold, Taking Tanka Home. AHA Books 2011, second edition. Introduction and translation by Aya Yuhki. Perfect bound, 7.5 x 7.5 inches, 100 pages, Cover artwork by Werner Reichhold. Bilingual with kanji and romaji of each poem. $15 ppd. Order from AHA Books, Jane@AHApoetry.com
Recommended
Asian poetry, especially from Japan and China, have influenced American and Western poetry in many ways. Translations and advocacy by Arthur Waley and Ezra Pound were significant factors in this influence. Use of Asian forms by poets writing in English has expanded greatly in the last half-century. Japanese poets and organizations now accept tanka (and haiku) in English as legitimate uses of these forms.
Jane Reichhold’s new book, Taking Tanka Home, exemplifies the adaptation of Asian forms to American poetry and the positive reception of work by Western poets in Japan. Jane Reichhold has several decades of accomplishment as a poet and editor. Her role in bringing tanka into English is described briefly in Aya Yuhki’s Introduction to Taking Tanka Home and further in Jane’s “Author’s Notes” at the end. Recognition of Jane’s role is shown by her being invited (along with husband, Werner) in 1998 to attend the First Poetry Party of the Year at the Imperial Palace in Tokyo.
This collection comes from Jane’s participation in the International PEN conference in Tokyo in 2010. As a result of that conference. Aya Yuhki read Jane’s tanka and decided to provide Japanese translations for this second edition of Taking Tanka Home. Everything in this edition is bilingual, a feature which should make it especially valuable to students of language and culture.
The tanka is a traditional Japanese form based on counting syllables. A traditional tanka has five lines of five, seven, five, and five syllables respectively. English writers of tanka have dropped the strict syllable count but usually stay with the five-line form. Like haiku, tanka are not titled, nor do they rhyme. There is now a Tanka Society of America that publishes a quarterly journal. The Reichholds’ AHA Books sponsors a number of tanka-related items. You may purchase Taking Tanka Home there.
Jane’s accomplishments as a tanka poet are demonstrated in many of these poems. As with any collection, the reader finds some poems that immediately strike home and others that are more distant. Returning to the collection, the reader will find other poems that strike home. Here are some comments on a few of the poems that struck me immediately.
Dynamism
What kind of movement can a poem in five lines and less than 31 syllables have? How does it keep from being a static image? Well, what if the image itself moves? And surprises the reader in moving? For example,
roots
of the fallen pine
move again
a deer comes into view
with a fine rack of antlers
The roots of the pine move twice: first, when the tree falls, second, when the deer moves into view, its antlers at first appearing to be the roots moving again. This fine tanka exemplifies how Jane’s images can move and express/create surprise.
Leaps
One theme in the Chuang Tzu, a major Taoist book, is the importance of changing perspective, awareness that one’s perspective is always relative. There are several examples of leaps in perspective in this collection. The poem above is an example on a small scale.
granite basin
only inches deep
with snowmelt
yet the depths of heaven
bring every star to it
This tanka, of course, also has the leap in perception as the deer/pine tanka. The leap in the next one has a fairy tale resonance:
in high mountains
suddenly the round moon
full of concern
leaves her place in the sky
to check on the lone traveler
The reticence of tanka saves this poem from sentimentality. The care of the moon for the traveler seems very natural.
Sometimes the leap is internal, proprioceptive:
in a fog
with no east or west
my confusion
seems as if I am wearing
the day wrong side out
Personally, I’ve worn more days “wrong side out” than I can count.
Metaphysical Tanka
The last poetry in the book is a series of five tanka, “Unrecognized Friends.” Aya Yuhki calls them “metaphysical.” They are abstract and epigrammatic; appropriately to the label “metaphysical,” the diction and imagery of these tanka is abstract, asking the reader to compile meaning from them. Fortunately, these tanka do not state their meanings as overtly as this description may suggest. These poems are my least favorite in the book, but that’s a matter of taste. Here is the one that speaks to me most strongly:
grief
the tunnel of love
lengthened
by our moments together
swift passing days
Full disclosure: I became a contributor to Lynx during Terry Grell’s editorship and have continued under Jane and Werner Reichhold’s editorship. Ghazals by both Werner and Jane appeared in early issues of The Ghazal Page. Despite my association with AHA Books and the Reichholds, I would not have published this review if I didn’t think the poems to be good.
