The Small, Wild Places

Editor and founder of Skylark Tanka Journal in Great Britain, Claire Everett has made contributions to the short poem in English that compel, on both critical and artistic fronts, our undivided attention and enthusiasm. The Small, Wild Places is the poetry of an engaged intelligence, one that has mastered the nuances, pivots, compact powers and rhythms that are unique to the five-line form of modern English tanka. Everett works inside the seam that exists between the reality of the...
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Editor and founder of Skylark Tanka Journal in Great Britain, Claire Everett has made contributions to the short poem in English that compel, on both critical and artistic fronts, our undivided attention and enthusiasm. The Small, Wild Places is the poetry of an engaged intelligence, one that has mastered the nuances, pivots, compact powers and rhythms that are unique to the five-line form of modern English tanka. Everett works inside the seam that exists between the reality of the physical world and our spiritiual connection to its energies, essences, and infinite possibilities. David Terelinck's arrangement of the poems makes a symphony of the poet's words and images, themes and subjects. The music is that of earth tones and intimate landscapes, love and remembrance, and moments anchored in permanence. Behind it all, there is a philosophy at work in The Small, Wild Places that binds time and transience, the metaphysical and the concrete - that special Celtic ability to apprehend and express the unseen in the seen, and to lift our vision with sheer tidal pull and force. Do not be surprised, then, if these poems bring you and your inner ear to that place that is "Silent, upon a peak in Darien" - where every lover of poetry, I think, wishes to go. -Michael McClintock, Editor, The Tanka Anthology (Red Moon Press, 2003) and President (2005-2012), Tanka Society of America.