Sunflower Tanka is a tanka poetry anthology of 36 poets from all over the world.
Eugi’s formal name is Franci Hoffman. Online in the blogging community, she’s known as Eugi, and her weekly Tuesday blog challenge is at Moonwashed Weekly Prompt. Eugi is an abbreviation for Eugenia, her middle name. Her poetry is in Chapter 14. Her poems are a tanka, rensaku, tanka Puente and lastly, a tanka prose. Don’t fret if these terms are unfamiliar. Here’s a brief introduction to bring you up to speed.
A tanka is a poem of five lines and all the words make up 31 syllables. This tanka is a basic building block, which can be built into a rensaku, tanka Puente or tanka prose.
A rensaku is a collection of tanka which are written about a same event or same experience.
A tanka Puente is two tankas. The first tanka is about the best moment of an event/ experience. The second tanka is about the worst moment of that same event.
A tanka prose is composed of a short paragraph setting the scene, followed by a tanka giving more details about this same setting.
Eugi’s various tankas are about nature, being mindful of her surroundings, the seasons and more. I enjoyed reading her poems.
Eugi’s blog has a webpage of her published poetry in various books here.
If I have a chance to interview Eugi, I would like to ask her these questions:
- How do you craft a tanka poem?
2. How do you decide what type of tanka to write? Will it be a simple tanka, or tanka Puente, or tanka prose?
3. In your opinion, which is your best poetry book among your solo projects?
4. What are your current projects?
5. What are your plans for your future works?
6. Here is space for you to share what you want others to know about you and your works.
Reference
Sunflower Tanka. Into The Light – 1st Edition 2024. Compiled by Robbie Cheadle & Colleen M. Chesebro.
Amazon author page of Franci Eugenia Hoffman.
Eugi also writes other poetry here (haiku).
Stay tuned for more poetry reviews on the Sunflower Tanka.
Updated on March 26, 2025.
Dear Readers,
Poet Eugi has responded to our invite to share a short introduction to herself and her works. Her reply is posted in her blog at https://amanpan.com/2025/03/25/exciting-news-a-review-by-diy-art-%f0%9f%8c%bb/
Thank you Eugi!
Thank you so much for the review, Cai.
Here is my post responding to your fantastic review. https://amanpan.com/2025/03/25/exciting-news-a-review-by-diy-art-%F0%9F%8C%BB/
You are welcome. You have been supportive of all bloggers.