Eucalypt, Issue 4, 2008, edited by Beverley George, P.O. Box 37, Pearl Beach 2256, Australia.  www.eucalypt.info.  44 pp.  ISSN 1833-8186

Subscriptions: $30 within Australia; AUD$35 or US$25 (Japan and New Zealand) and AUD$40 or US$30 (for US, UK, Canada and Europe) for 2 issues per annum, with renewal due mid year.  Submissions close March 31 and September 30.  Issues published May and November.

Reviewed by Patricia Prime

In this issue, Eucalypt carries on the work of showcasing the tanka of poets from many parts of the world.  Eucalypt focuses solely on tanka and no essays or reviews are published in the journal.  An occasional email newsletter from the editor gives news of tanka events, publications, contests, readers’ choice tanka and more.

Many of the poets featured in Eucalypt need little introduction to readers as their work can be read in various tanka journals, in their collections or on the internet.

The American poet, Sanford Goldstein, who now lives in Japan, gives us a splendid tanka which not only reminds us that he is a world-renowned tanka poet who has been writing tanka for several decades, but also tells us that is fitting to be moved by our own work:

proofreading
these four decades
on my tanka road,
egocentric, am I not,
being moved by my own poems!

M L Grace’s voice is a decidedly romantic one:

yellow mango
in a celadon bowl
I see again
your summer body flashing
naked through green water

while John Barlow’s  poems are a major attraction for any reader of tanka:

the scent
of mint gone to seed . . .
just when
did the countless days
begin trailing into numbers

The poems sparkle on the page – some with minimalist glee – while others such as Michael McClintock’s careful construction reveals in its balanced lines, his relief in being able to pass a treasure on to a younger person:

her last diary
I gave to my nephew –
a relief
to see it taken away
in a pair of young hands

McClintock’s expert tonal control and his ability to explore feeling is admirably captured in the tanka’s movement.

Beverley George does not indicate the various themes into which the tanka fall, although poems on several of the pages may be grouped in a theme.  Inevitably, the poems dally on many themes, ranging from a haiku circle, a barely warm rock, through storms, nature, love, illness, death and much more.

Peter Mitchell’s two tanka acknowledge the trauma of a victim of cancer, giving the reader a luminous account of a swelling tumour, and the effects of chemotherapy:

the mint-blue air –
fresh as cool bark skinning
tall apple gums –
marbles the tumours swelling
my ordinary features

chemotherapy
scissors my life short,
my hair falling through
the clean-glass air onto
the skin of the waiting ground

Humour often saves the day.  In Jo Tregallis’ tanka a daily chore becomes a link between two people they probably hadn’t imagined could take place over such a mundane task:

tea towel in hand
you wear my favourite apron
comfortably
our strings attached
for eternity

Even if you remain unmoved by some poems, you will be won over by Margaret Chula’s burnished tones as she writes about touching things in the garden in a way that “I never touched you”:

late summer
in the garden
just before dusk
touching plants, leaves, flowers
as I never touched you

Simplicity wins out in the tanka by Bob Lucky, Carole MacRury and Martina Taeker, while Carmel Summers’ poems are a blast of high-energy virtuosity.

Best of all, Cherie Hunter Day and Andrew Detheridge add to the number of wonderful tanka they have published:

seven years
is enough time to replace
every cell in the body
we’re not the same
as when we said good-bye

 Cherie Hunter Day

rush hour
two men, black from the forge
watch as I jog past
on the other side of the road:
on the other side of the universe

 Andrew Detheridge

while Matthew Paul has the mark of his delight in birds, scenery and mystery stamped all over his tanka:

black geese
stream across the estuary
to Blue House Farm
my threadbare thoughts
strewn by the wind

this is a landscape in which one just might be able to imagine oneself.

The rhythmic pattern of tanka sometimes make a dance across the surface of the page in ways that are not exactly symmetrical but still retain a strong rhythm.  The style of tanka differs from poet to poet, but all are lively, lyrical examples of the form and make Eucalypt well worth reading.