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Major tanka poets, such as Takuboku in Japanese and Goldstein in English, have long advocated the importance of autobiography in tanka, and tanka in English today carries an autobiographical assumption. Autobiography has the virtue of focussing on the here and now as it is actually experienced, rather than as it is fantasized about from a distance. Autobiography grounds poetic expression in lived experience and "keeps it real." However, if unchecked, it can lead to a banal narcissism in which much is written but little is said.

Poetry of place expands the self to include the community and environment, both human and natural, through which the poet travels. Groups and places have their biographies as well; they are not static non-entities but profoundly important, affecting and effective boundaries of the poet's psyche. Whether contemplating subjects as diverse as an old chest of drawers or a Canadian waterfall, poets find connection, meaning, and significance in the previously unremarked proximities of our lives. Tanka poets of place are pushing tanka as a genre and poetry as a form into new territories.

Even when chronicling the tribulations and disappointments of their lives, the tanka poets' intense awareness of their participation in the world saves them from alienation. Not for them the mental absinthe of the post-modern poet who believes that emotional baggage must always be packed with black. The poets of Atlas Poetica carry humor and joy along with grief and loss; their baggage is as likely to reveal Hawaiian shirts and taffeta prom dresses as worn flannels, funeral suits, and Italian sunglasses.

Atlas Poetica's covers provide a graphic depiction of our editorial attitude towards poetry of place: the satellite photos were culled by scientists from their more prosaic applications. Although their purpose was pragmatic and scientific, they could not help being moved by beauty. Thus the "Earth As Art" collection was born to share dramatic, aesthetically satisfying satellite photographs free of charge to the general public.

Atlas Poetica is published three times a year, in the Spring, Summer, and Autumn, and features approximately 500 poems per issue, along with announcements, resources, articles, and other materials. It is an 8.5" x 11" print journal with a full color cover, and also a PDF ebook and an online journal beginning with issue 3. [Modern English Tanka Press stopped publishing Atlas Poetica at the end of 2009.]

The Editor

M. Kei is an award-winning poet who lives on the Eastern Shore of the Chesapeake Bay, USA. He crews aboard a skipjack, a traditional wooden sailboat used to fish for oysters. He is the editor of the Atlas Poetica: A Journal of Poetry of Place in Modern English Tanka and the editor-in-chief of the anthology series Take Five: Best Contemporary Tanka. His second collection is Slow Motion: Log of a Chesapeake Bay Skipjack (2008). Over 1100 of his tanka have been published in ten countries and five languages. He also writes scholarly articles about tanka and compiles the Bibliography of English-Language Tanka. Readers and poets who wish to keep abreast of M. Kei's various literary projects should subscribe to Keibooks-Announce@googlegroups.com. This low volume, announcement-only email list sends 0-4 announcements per month, including calls for submission, press releases, book notes, and other items directly related to Kei's projects. (It is not a general news feed. Readers are referred to Tanka News and Haiku Headlines for a full spectrum short form poetry news.)

See M. Kei's blog, Kujaku Poetry.