Chen-ou Liu's Translation Project: First English-Chinese Haiku and Tanka Blog

Wednesday, October 1, 2025

October Light Tanka

To Virginia Woolf, The Waves

Let me then create you …
in this lovely,
this fading, 
this still bright October day.

You wish to be a poet; and you wish to be a lover.

drenched 
in sweat and hot tears 
I push, pushing 
the last line of my tanka 
out into this October light 



FYI: This tanka was written in response to NeverEnding Story's Hot News: New Milestone, the Highest Monthly Pageviews, 221, 461 and Call for Submissions

The proper response to a poem is another poem. 😉
-- Phyllis Webb

We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospect.
-- Anaïs Nin

A poem after a poem after a poem is POWER!
-- paraphrasing Margaret Atwood