NEW HOPE INTERNATIONAL REVIEW ON-LINE

The newsletter opens with a detailed, friendly and largely autobiographical message from the president of the Tanka Society of America, Michael Dylan Welch. Along with information about competitions, meetings, conventions, publications and such there are some excellent lengthy reviews which give plenty of space to the tanka or haiku under discussion. There is a short piece in each issue about a favourite tanka, and here Michael Dylan Welch writes that

one of the hallmarks of tanka — which still needs to be differentiated from haiku — is indeed this sense of refined introspectiveness, a sort of gentle self-awareness that the poet presents of his or her own emotional situation.

	this credit card
	already at its limit
	I employ
	this frosty morning
	to scrape my windshield

	Sometimes
	if I just turn my chair
	around
	the forms of things are not
	as they were a moment ago

	my father
	died again last night —
	in other dreams
	grandmother still lives
	until the day breaks

	my future
	a steep narrowing
	narrow
	as the diminishing grays
	down a calligraphic line

The Tanka Society of America has only been going for a few years. It was formed in 2000 and this newsletter is produced quarterly. Experienced poets run it. Some of them are well known to British haiku and tanka writers, such as myself. For instance, the President is Michael Dylan Welch and the Vice-President is Michael McClintock.

This issue opens with information given by the president. There is news about the society, and advertisements about competitions and meetings. Pages of review follow this. There is a very long review of a book by Jane Reichhold, then just a short mention of a book by June Moreau. The review of the Reichhold view is detailed and in sharp contrast to my own review of the same book here.

There is an interesting section called TANKA CAFÉ in which Michael McClintock talks about the construction of some specific tanka and this is followed by tanka on a given theme. In this particular newsletter, the theme is "Things that are green" Here is a flavour:

	hiking
	across rolling
	green hills
	the same ones I saw
	in last night's peaceful dream

	Margarita Engle

		long distance
		my sister and I recall
		our green years —
		aged two and three, hand in hand
		up and down our front steps

		Melissa Dixon

Michael McClintock is a fine poet and here he gives:

	sometime
	during the day
	the shining haze
	left this empty field
	faintly green

An authoritative newsletter, edited by Pamela Miller Ness.

The content is rich, diverse, serious and erudite. It includes members' themed tanka, contest results, in-depth articles and brief book reviews. I was particularly taken with the FAVOURITE TANKA section, where well-known poets (on this occasion Brian Tasker and Sanford Goldstein) select a favourite poem and analyse it in depth. This one, by Tom Clausen, was Goldstein's choice:

	wanting my old life
	when I wanted my present life;
	stirring the soup she made as a cold rain
	falls outside

This newsletter of the Tanka Society of America has details of contests, lists of newly-elected officers and new members, the Treasurer's report, news, notes, invitations to submit to the MEMBERS' ANTHOLOGY, and right at the back, the judge's report and samples from the latest competition. Of these {winners and highly commends} I liked best Anne Drew's:

	today after 5 years
	I saw you in the bookshop
	you gave me that smile
	I didn't know
	I could still blush

	shot with snowflakes
	my image in the window
	all a tremble
	I hug myself — the pain
	of never-ending war