The Autobiography of the World
The first issue of Atlas Poetica : A Journal of Poetry of Place in Modern English Tanka, was met with great appreciation. The result is a truly international journal that looks at the natural and cultural places of the human heart, finding significance in a blade of grass and the footsteps of actual people in our collective myths. If tanka is the autobiography of the poet as Takuboku and Goldstein teach, then poetry of place is the autobiography of the world itself.
We were gratified to receive many sets and sequences for the first issue. Atlas Poetica’s format was deliberately designed to permit the publication of sequences that were too long to publish in other venues, and we continue to welcome sequences of up to forty tanka in length, but prefer to be queried regarding longer sequences. We also received various works that include prose in various forms, whether in the form of classical headnotes, annotations, or fully developed prose with tanka in the haibun tradition.
We think the form of prose with tanka will prove fertile, for this is one of the most ancient methods by which tanka was published: as diary entries, embedded in letters and composed in celebration of various occasions. We believe that tanka’s accessibility is directly related to the conversational way in which it was classically used, and that now more than ever, human beings need to speak to one another—not with the rants and shrills that are the usual public discourse, but with eloquence and grace.
By speaking about their experiences of place, the poets of Atlas Poetica have touched on many deeper issues: the value of the natural environment, the importance of our communities, the travails of the modern world, and the everlasting love of beauty that may be the only true definition of civilization. The appreciation of beauty is not a luxury and not a fascination with superficial features, but the ability to peer into the details of existence and find joy. Nowhere is this more important than when burdened with the devastations that humans wreak on each other and the environment.
Our first issue published content in twelve languages, and we welcome and encourage international and indigenous contributions to the ‘autobiography of the world.’ We continue to seek and encourage translations into additional languages and bilingual presentations of international tanka with the native and English versions as co-equals. We also welcome articles, book reviews and essays addressing various elements of poetry of place in tanka in English or bilingual editions, as well as announcements, resources, and book notes in any language (no English translation required).
~K~
M. Kei
Editor, Atlas Poetica
"Image courtesy of USGS National Center for EROS and NASA Landsat Project Science Office"
The Editor
M. Kei crews aboard a skipjack, a traditional wooden sailboat used to fish for oysters in the Chesapeake Bay. He is the author
of Heron Sea, Short Poems of the Chesapeake Bay, and
the editor of the critically acclaimed anthology, Fire Pearls:
Short Masterpieces of the Human Heart. His latest project is Take Five : Best Contemporary Tanka of 2008, of
which he serves as founder and editor-in-chief. He has published more than 800 poems and scholarly articles in five languages
and ten countries. He also compiles the
Bibliography of English-Language Tanka.
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