Tanka from the Edge

by Miriam Sagan

Price: $11.95 USD.
ISBN 978-0-9817691-9-6
Trade paperback. 116 pages, 6" x 9".

Tanka from the Edge is a collection of over a hundred tanka that represent a decade's worth of poetic journeys. Some come from literal travels to places ranging from the Sonoran and Mohave deserts to Alaska's inner passage. Miriam Sagan has been a writer in residence at two national parks—Everglades and Petrified Forest. These very different eco-systems have both given rise to tanka. So has a year's intermittent residency at THE LAND/An Art Site, which is dedicated to low impact sculpture in Mountainair, New Mexico.

a woman
of fifty-five
sunning myself—
late afternoon
the lizard's golden eye

And sometimes these tanka just stay home, observing Sagan's unfashionable westside neighborhood in Santa Fe, where small changes can be vivid. The poems also reflect a renewed interest in Buddhism after many years absence.

even after
all these years
sitting zazen—
the monk still casts a shadow
on the paper screen

The title was suggested by Teresa Neptune, whose photograph is on the cover. Neptune, who has a photography gallery on Canyon Road, and Sagan are step-cousins. Their collaboration of visual art and poetry is ongoing.

Miriam Sagan is the author of twenty books, including the recent poetry collection Map of the Lost from UNM Press. She founded and directs the creative writing program at Santa Fe Community College. Her website is "Santa Fe Poetry Broadside" (sfpoetry.org) which publishes numerous poets, including tanka poets.

Her close friend and neighbor Elizabeth Searle Lamb was her mentor in haiku and tanka. Sagan edited Lamb's collected poetry Across the Windharp. Lamb's influence remains here.