Tanka from the Edge
Modern English Tanka Press, 2009. Nominated for Pushcart Prize.
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Tanka from the Edge is a collection of over a hundred tanka that represent a decade's worth of poetic journeys. Some come from literal travels to places ranging from the Sonoran and Mohave deserts to Alaska's inner passage. Miriam Sagan has been a writer in residence at two national parks—Everglades and Petrified Forest. These very different eco-systems have both given rise to tanka. So has a year's intermittent residency at THE LAND/An Art Site, which is dedicated to low impact sculpture in Mountainair, New Mexico.

a woman
of fifty-five
sunning myself—
late afternoon
the lizard's golden eye

And sometimes these tanka just stay home, observing Sagan's unfashionable westside neighborhood in Santa Fe, where small changes can be vivid. The poems also reflect a renewed interest in Buddhism after many years absence.

even after
all these years
sitting zazen—
the monk still casts a shadow
on the paper screen

The title was suggested by Teresa Neptune, whose photograph is on the cover. Neptune, who has a photography gallery on Canyon Road, and Sagan are step-cousins. Their collaboration of visual art and poetry is ongoing.

Her close friend and neighbor Elizabeth Searle Lamb was her mentor in haiku and tanka. Sagan edited Lamb's collected poetry Across the Windharp. Lamb's influence remains here.

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