Love Is a Tanka

Love Is a Tanka In 2020 Jeanne Lupton writes "in the midst/ of writing tanka/ in a café/ I already want/ this happiness again." It's a grand example of Lupton's tanka, illustrating a particular syncopation that is perfect for telling her stories, revealing intimacies, launching memories. Lupton takes ownership of the tanka form to entertain with wit, careful observation, and tenderness. She reveals a life lived over time and with challenges. The tanka come fast and amass a litany of human foibles, stumbles, generous connections, and difficulties. Lupton's Love is Tanka chronicles a fierce human spirit, that's sustained by love, as she learns to endure. - Sally Elesby, poet and painter Some of these bring instant tears, others a touch of the poignant soul. All are suffused with the divine light of the ordinary. What is most hidden and deepest is the most obvious, only to see it you must look with the eye that these tanka sharpen. I'm reminded, too, of the Buddhist saying that the most enlightened being appears to be most ordinary. These poems are a treasure. - Clive Matson, author of Hello, Paradise. Paradise, Goodbye Love is a Tanka.... As the title shows, this tanka collection is full of love. Love for people, love for nature, love for tanka, love for writing... After reading this book, I'm sure you'll feel good. Jeanne Lupton makes you happy by presenting her happy tanka in this book. a rainy noon I run across the square to the café to eat tomato bisque feeling like a poet - Kozue Uzawa, editor of GUSTS Jeanne Lupton's condensed language of tanka takes the reader on an unforgettable journey into what it is to be human. - Chantal Guillemin, author of Truchas and Mi Tierra Adentro About the Author