Welcome
Welcome to the new home for Atlas Poetica : A Journal of Poetry of Place in Contemporary Tanka.
When MET Press of Baltimore, Maryland, published Landfall : Poetry of Place in Modern English Tanka, it received a landslide of submissions. Thousands of poems were submitted, making it the most sought after tanka venue in the English language. It was only logical to create a journal to provide an ongoing forum for the publication, appreciation, and advancement of tanka poetry of place. Atlas Poetica was born.
Edited by M. Kei, it quickly established itself as one of the distinctive voices in tanka literature. The large format was deliberately designed to accommodate lengthy sequences, shaped tanka, articles, and other items too bulky for the smaller journals. In addition, ATPO reached out to tanka communities around the world, providing a venue to publish tanka in languages other than English, as well as providing lists of resources, announcements, and other information to serve the world tanka community.
Tanka poetry of place embodies the community and environment, both human and natural, through which the poet travels. Groups and places are profoundly important, forming the affective and effective boundaries of the poet’s psyche. Whether contemplating subjects as diverse as an old chest of drawers or a Romanian seashore, tanka poets find connection, meaning, and significance in the previously unremarked proximities of our lives. Tanka poets of place are pushing into new territories and creating new maps of our literary consciousness.
ATPO’s covers provide a graphic depiction of our editorial view: the satellite photos were culled by scientists from their more prosaic applications. Although their purpose was pragmatic and scientific, they could not help being moved by beauty. Thus the “Earth As Art” and “Visible Earth” collections were born to share dramatic, aesthetically satisfying satellite photographs free of charge to the general public.
In 2010 ATPO transferred to Keibooks, the small press owned and operated by M. Kei, the journal’s founder and editor. At this time it changed its tagline and became Atlas Poetica : A Journal of Poetry of Place in Contemporary Tanka, reflecting that it publishes not just English-language tanka, but tanka from around the world. ATPO is a true ‘poetic atlas’ of the tanka world.
ATPO is published three times a year, in the Spring, Summer, and Autumn. It features approximately 500 poems per issue, along with announcements, resources, articles, and other materials. It is an 8.5′ x 11″ journal with a full color cover.
The Editor
M. Kei is an award-winning poet who lives on the Eastern Shore of the Chesapeake Bay, USA. He is a tall ship sailor who served his apprenticeship aboard a skipjack, a traditional wooden sailboat used to fish for oysters. He is the editor of the Atlas Poetica: A Journal of Poetry of Place in Contemporary Tanka and the editor-in-chief of the anthology series Take Five: Best Contemporary Tanka. His second collection is Slow Motion: Log of a Chesapeake Bay Skipjack (2008). Over 1200 of his tanka have been published in ten countries and six languages. He also writes non-fiction articles about tanka and compiles the Bibliography of English-Language Tanka. Most recently he has published a nautical novel, Pirates of the Narrow Seas, set during the Age of Sail.
Readers and poets who wish to keep abreast of M. Kei’s various literary projects should subscribe to Keibooks-Announce@googlegroups.com. This low volume, announcement-only email list sends 0-4 announcements per month, including calls for submission, press releases, book notes, and other items directly related to Kei’s projects. (It is not a general news feed. Readers are referred to Tanka News and Haiku Headlines for a full spectrum of short form poetry news.)
See M. Kei’s blog, Kujaku Poetry, and the Keibooks catalog for further information.
