Ten Tanka Poems by Janet Ruth Heller

 

Ten Tanka

 

 

we leave Michigan 

amid snow and icy winds 

fly to Phoenix 

stroll outside without a coat 

revel in blooming roses

 

 

 

hiking with in-laws 

and a baby, we meet 

a swan family— 

angry, the bird dad attacks 

our stroller with his beak

 

 

 

tiny birds wear brown 

all winter long— 

March sunshine 

transforms them 

into goldfinches

 

 

 

skinny blue heron 

stands fishing in the river— 

only her head moves 

ever so slightly 

proof she’s not a statue

 

 

 

darkness descends 

this May afternoon, whirling 

winds topple trees 

punch holes in houses— 

tornado

 

 

 

three weeks of rain 

drench Oberlin College— 

restless students 

grumble and joke about 

building an ark

 

 

 

a black and white bird 

arrives in Michigan 

from Mexico 

eats sunflower seeds and sings 

red bandana on his chest

 

 

 

winter solstice 

in Phoenix—rainbow 

holiday lights 

wrap around 

saguaros

 

 

 

at nightfall I walk 

through my neighbourhood 

spot a glowing bar 

that invades the sky— 

satellite

 

 

 

when roses bloom 

I follow the swallows 

and swans to your home 

near the Fox River 

rest in your arms

 

 

Janet Ruth Heller is the past president of the Michigan College English Association and the Society for the Study of Midwestern Literature.  She has a Ph.D. in English from the University of Chicago.  She has taught literature, creative writing, women's studies, linguistics, and composition at eight colleges and universities.  She has published four poetry books:  Nature’s Olympics (Wipf and Stock, 2021), Exodus (WordTech Editions, 2014), Folk Concert: Changing Times (Anaphora Literary Press, 2012), and Traffic Stop (Finishing Line Press, 2011); a scholarly book, Coleridge, Lamb, Hazlitt, and the Reader of Drama (University of Missouri Press, 1990); a middle-grade fiction chapter book for children, The Passover Surprise (Fictive Press, 2015, 2016); and a fiction picture book for children about bullying, How the Moon Regained Her Shape (Arbordale, 2006; 7th edition 2022), that has won four national awards, including a Children’s Choices award.  Her play The Cell Phone won fourth place in a national contest and was performed at the Fenton Village Players One-Act Play Festival in Fenton, Michigan (2011).  Her play Pledging was performed at Triton College in Illinois during the Tritonysia Play Festival (2017). Choeofpleirn Press published Pledging in its anthology Rushing Through the Dark (2022).  

Her website is https://www.janetruthheller.com

Janet has had haiku, senryu, and tanka published in Presence, Frogpond, bottle rockets, Prune Juice, Time Haiku, Ribbons, Eucalypt, Laurels, Moonbathing, the art of tanka, failed haiku, tsuri-dōrō, Cold Moon Journal, Blithe Spirit, cattails, Ginyu, Organic Gardening, Haiku Canada Review, Paper Wasp, Leaf, The Frameless Sky, Seeding the Snow, Bear Creek Haiku, Scarlet Dragonfly Journal, humana obscura, Akitsu Quarterly, Mayfly, Five Fleas, Sugar Mule, The Heron’s Nest, and the anthology They Gave Us Life: Celebrating Mothers and Fathers in Haiku edited by Robert Epstein. She has also published these forms in her poetry books listed above.

Heller's fiction picture book for children about bullying, How the Moon Regained Her Shape, won a Book Sense Pick (2006), a Benjamin Franklin Award (2007), a Children’s Choices award (2007), and a Gold Medal in the Moonbeam Children’s Book Awards (2007). In 2009, How the Moon Regained Her Shape was also one of five finalists for the Patricia Gallagher Picture Book Award given by the Oregon Reading Association.