Coincidently, Gerry’s initiation into tanka commenced four years ago in a Tanka Journal Workshop facilitated in this same conference Room. Amazing to discover that he has written 1500 tanka in notebooks since that time in cafes in London, Stockholm, Sydney and Canberra as well as other venues, many of which are now published. Gerry’s greatest challenge is to master tanka prose. Speaking of this inspired others to also try.

Surprising how quickly time passes when seven poets are responding to twenty tanka in an hour. The topics for this month, ‘Home’ and ‘Away’, bought about varied content ranging from Christmas snow, cherry trees, to counting facebook friends as well as a tanka about a tiny wren, delicate in understanding and description. Once again the standard was high. Everyone took home these poetry sheets (and September’s challenges) to vote on for consideration in proposed Limestone Tanka Poet’s inaugural anthology, 2012.

We also learnt that the Canberra launch date for Food for Thought, Amelia Fielden’s tanka anthology, will be 14th January, 2012, and discussed Eucalypt challenge, Coining a Phrase, 10th November 2011, as well as the deadline (12th December 2011) for Snipe Rising from a Marsh – Birds in Tanka, An Atlas Poetica Special Feature.

Strolling through late afternoon sunshine back to the car it was hard to comprehend that after nine Limestone Tanka Poets monthly meetings for 2011, the next (on 27th November) will be the last for this year. Fitting to end our inaugural year with a much-anticipated workshop by David Terelinck. Waiting to hear what he, as facilitator, might like our November challenge to be, ‘Coast’ was suggested in case the choice was up to us.

Apologies were received from Paul Williams, Michael Thorley, John Van De Graaff, June Foster and Saeko Ogi.

Kathy Kituai
Founder and Facilitator