Results of "Where Tanka Prose Grows: 2018"
Susan Burch and I take great pride in announcing the winners of the "Where Tanka Prose Grows: 2018" challenge held during the month of September, 2018. The following entries no doubt show skill at balancing tanka with prose, with each part complementing the other in metaphor, style, pivot and depth. Congratulations to the winners and also to the entire set of contestants for taking part in this challenge to make this happen yet again.
For those new to tanka prose, this is a form of Japanese poetry blending tanka with prose. You will find resources to tanka and tanka prose on the right hand panel of this page/ site.
The Prizes
First Place: USD 20.00 + eCertificate
Dr. Shrikaanth K. Murthy, editor of ephimerae, awards the first place winner special mention in the third edition of ephimerae.
Second & Third Place: eCertificates
The Winners
First Place - Urszula Funnell
13 points
Where the Flowers Fall
a life so short
it was barely a life
at all…
a poppy picked
in the midday sun
Golden rays filter into the bedroom as the curtains flap gently in the breeze. Zahra and her three sisters watch quietly whilst the latest addition to the family nuzzles at their mother’s breast. Not so far away, in the old town, the familiar sound of gunfire and explosions.
scattered
amongst the rubble
petals
of a wallflower
crushed by the war
It’s six months later and Zahra is the only one to have made it to the makeshift camp on the edge of Dunkirk. She’s fallen asleep with just a thin, tattered coat to blanket her. Dreams come in fits and starts until she is roused by a deep voice and a bright light shining in her face. For a moment, she thinks perhaps it’s an angel. That death seeped into her whilst she slept, like the frost that crept along the forest floor. But no, if she was dead then surely the weight she had carried in her chest across the sea and through the mountains would be gone. Besides, angels don't kick you in the ribs to wake you.
child refugees
alone in the camp…
a web
ensnares blossoms
carried by the wind
Comment by contestants:
This is very powerful, especially the poppy tanka, which I feel would be better placed at the end because it is so powerful and poignant. The following two tanka are perhaps too close to the text, too explicit in depicting a similar scene. I think three tanka are too many for this haibun.
Second Place - Tracy Davidson
12 points
X-ray Vision
I stare at the pictures on the wall. My eyes follow the cracks in a little girl’s bones, some half-healed and some fresh, a lifetime of abuse. The atmosphere in that cold room crackles with my colleagues silence. I leave the x-rays on display, for when the police and social services arrive. They will help when words fail me.
she sits awkwardly
on the edge of a chair
bruised and bandaged
a nice lady with a doll
asks her to point where it hurts
Comment by contestants:
Wow. This haibun has great impact. Powerful, succinct and hits where it hurts. I like the way the tanka adds more to the whole haibun. And great use of grammar!
Third Place - Jean Holland
10 points
Autumn Leaves
Leaving it all behind was the hardest thing that she ever did. Not that any of it really meant anything to her.
A house is just a place for things. Friends…eh, they were just acquaintances really. No one knew the workings of her inner soul.
Really, it was the habits that were toughest to break. She had become addicted to her habits. They were the things that bound her .
They somehow got into her brain and established comfortable ruts in which she fell and had difficulty pulling herself out of.
the open door
prison
of shoulds and should nots
stuck to the drainpipe -
autumn leaves
Comment by contestants:
I like the prose and the tanka. I think the prose could be tighter, more succinct, using two paragraphs instead of four. There are a couple of extra spaces between words.
