Write a Tanka for the We Are Tennessee Project

The Discovery Center and I want your words.

In late April 2018, The Discovery Center will be unveiling a new exhibit called We Are Tennessee that explores the cultural diversity of our state and what it means to be a Tennessean. Murfreesboro’s Painter Laureate Ginny Togrye is working on a fantastic mural that will include art, photos, and writing by Tennesseeans of all ages. That’s where YOU come in!

Your words, art or photos might be in one of these frames in the We Are Tennessee mural being developed by Murfreesboro Painter Laureate Ginny Togrye for The Discovery Center.

Although the project will consider any 2 pages of written work exploring identity and representations of Tennesseans, clearly shorter pieces will work better for the mural. Therefore with the blessing of the Discovery Center, I’m putting out a special call for “Tennessee tanka.”

A Japanese form similar to haiku, a tanka is a short 5-line poem which doesn’t have many rules – the most important are that you don’t use conventional capitalization or punctuation or specify a title. Although some people may count syllables for tanka, what seems most popular in English, is that tanka work best simply by sticking to short lines (sometimes in the form short-long-short-long-long – but again, there aren’t firm rules about this). Here’s one of my favorites by Tennessee poet Elizabeth Howard:

yellow quinces
on a golden tree
I hunger for grandmother’s
crystal preserve stand
and her blue-checked cloth

and here’s another about food and grandmothers by Christina Sng:

up late
eating grandma’s
cherry pie
craving a slice
of silence

and one that has, to me, a very contemporary feel by Jennifer Hambrick:

at breakfast
more face time
with the drive-thru crew
than with
my family

and one that contains the perspective of two people, written by Barry George:

in her window
there’s a bridge and all
the distant cars
are glittering as close as
I will get to revelation

Not all tanka – but all of these tanka – happen to include one or more people, which is critical for the prompt I’m giving you. (All of the above are from various issues of American Tanka, which you can peruse for even more examples.)

Now, here’s my challenge to you for the We Are Tennessee project: Because this project focuses on identity, think of someone you know who lives or has lived in Tennessee (using yourself is fine), and put that person in a tanka. Consider including/using:

• objects you associate with this person
• food you associate with this person
• the setting you associate with this person (at the lake? on a front porch? in the driver’s seat of a ’69 GTO?)
• nature you associate with this person
• how this person relates to any of our state symbols
• the senses this person makes you think of (sight, sound, taste, smell, touch)
• perhaps include an emotion or an “I” statement – but keep emotions to one line if you name them at all. Try to let your description do the work of setting a tone.

I’m finding tanka fun to play with, and quick to draft. I hope you’ll have fun with them, too, and send several!

Submissions are due by March 23, and you can get all the details and submit here.