Ute (who pronounces her name Oooh-tah) Carbone is an award winning author of women’s fiction, comedy, and romance. She and her husband live in New Hampshire, where she spends her days walking, eating chocolate and dreaming up stories.
Tanka very much.
When Audra announced a poetry contest, I jumped at the chance to stretch my verse muscles. It's been a while since I've written a poem and a twenty five word poem was quite a challenge. I decided to write a Tanka. Tanka is not, as my very bad pun title suggests, a silly way to say thank you. It's an old Japanese poetry form, related to Haiku.
Haiku is a short poetry form, using three lines in a 5-7-5 syllable pattern. A good Haiku explores a single thought or bit of imagery, often with a surprising kind of revelation in the last line. Sometimes, poets would expand the Haiku, including two more 7 syllable lines at the end, the result is a Tanka—a five line poem with a 5-7-5-7-7 pattern.
Tanka is perfect for a short love poem and, since this is about romance, I thought I'd write one about the book I recently rereleased. The Whisper of Time is a novella (coincidently also a short form) about a woman named Gwynn who buys a farmhouse sight unseen. The farmhouse is not only tucked away in Vermont's Green Mountains, it is also a step back in time. Gwynn finds herself in 1972 with Slate Peck, the farm's caretaker, who is tied to her destiny and might just be the man she travelled back to find.
Here, without further ado, weighing in at twenty five words, is my Tanka
Whispers of a kiss,
seeds blown on a clement wind,
lie under the snow
await the breath of new spring
to restore love's sweet flavor.
Ute Carbone
Web page: http://www.utecarbone.com/
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