Linda Jeannette Ward

in dark pauses
of flickering film
a man beckons
the little girl to cross
the carpeted aisle

flipping through
my old poetry notebook
I find the nine digits
used to certify
your death

feathers and birds' eggs
we discovered together
such delicate relics
my sole companions now
you've soared to corporate heights

a friend's tears
over his wife's
infidelity--
your fingers uncurl
from mine

you write of spring
in Niigata
labor among black bamboo
so ordinary
it uncoils this long long pain

2003 Japan Tanka Poets' Club Tanka Contest

Linda Jeannette Ward's tanka collection, a frayed red thread: tanka love poems (Clinging Vine Press) was published in 2000.

Her haiku and tanka have won awards and honorable mentions from various competitions, and several of her tanka are included in The Tanka Anthology (Red Moon Press, 2003). 

Linda edited Full Moon Tide: The Best of Tanka Splendor 1990-1999, and she and Larry Kimmel (Winfred Press) are co-sponsors of the Tanka Calendar Competition, 2005.

She resides in Coinjock, North Carolina.