This week, I did a Barb’s Wordy Blurbs about Prolific Pulse Press’s new anthology “Social Possibilities: Poetic Voices of Hope”. I also have a Tanka poem and a Puente poem in the anthology. I used the anthology “Sunflower Tanka: An Anthology of Tanka, Tanka Prose, & Experimental Tanka”, compiled by Robbie Cheadle and Colleen Chesebro, as my primer for both of these forms.
A Tanka is a Japanese poetic form with five lines that have a 5-7-5-7-7 syllable structure.
(Tanka)
Our trauma mutes screams
under water. Our fears rise,
steams courage. Rages
currents. A fierce flow is hope.
How mighty is that river.
A Puente poem has three parts. Stanzas 1 and 3 are of equal length and present two perspectives on a topic. The second stanza is a short quote that acts as a bridge (puente) linking the other two stanzas. Ideally, the quote acts as the last line of the first stanza and the first line of the third stanza. The following is my Puente poem in the anthology.
I Am Not Agony: A Puente Poem
Upon reading Amanda Gorman during Black History Month 2025
Despair sits with me.
I am a mite, gulping dust,
helpless creator of itch,
an annoyance to poison.
I am an inconsolable bird
flying into a window reflecting
the enemy within.
Breaking my neck.
Breaking my neck.
I am a hunched-over hag,
searching for lost magic in
the shadow of imminent death.
“The new dawn blooms as we free it. For there is only light if we are brave enough to see it, if only we’re brave enough to be it.” — Amanda Gorman
I dream of the stars,
which gave birth to my lung air,
my cells, my iron-hot blood.
I am a glorious nova.
My outbursts dwarf the darkness.
I will consume it.
I dream of Earth’s wet womb.
I am her maker of meadows.
I am her magma, her fire,
ready to rise.
I dream of the great pine, Methuselah.
I too bristle with the ages. Live on air.
Survive.
KINDLE and PAPERBACK
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