Tanka by Claire Everett
Introduction by David Terelinck
Cover and illustrations by Amy Claire Rose.
" There is a rich emotional depth and spiritual grace to this collection. Claire Everett’s deeper tanka are never laboured, and the lighter are never artificial. She is sensitive to the world around her, and her place within that world. Under a mead moon, at the height of summer, she poses the question:
who am I
sitting by the stream?
It is no surprise to see her answer with the utmost humility and acceptance:
nothing but a speck
on the blue-veined arm
of morning
It is this humility, along with a lyrical musicality and economy of language, which links Claire Everett’s writing to the great court poets of the past. Some thirteen centuries after this five-line genre originated in Japan as waka, Claire Everett’s unique voice of today still contains all the honesty and integrity present in the ancient poems of renowned writers such as Izumi Shikibu."
From the introduction by David Terelinck, award-winning poet and author of Casting Shadows.