Our mission at Songbirds Online is simple, yet profound, we are dedicated to preserve the songlike rhythm of Tanka and its predecessor Waka. In the wise words of established poet Amelia Fielden "to bring back the form of tanka, and its essential rhythm that's created by the short/long/short/long/long lines." (from an article where Amelia quoted the well-known tanka poet Mariko Kitakubo "Japanese tanka build and build so that the 5th line is the most important line, and should be at least as long as the second and fourth lines").
The Thirteenth annual Songbirds Online Fleeting Words Tanka Competition (founded in 2012) is now calling for your submissions and is open from 1 April 2025 until 15 May 2025 . (midnight) GMT). Results should be posted on this site around 15 June, 2025
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Submission Guidelines: (for "Fleeting Words".)
1. Please send your work in the body of an email with no attachments, and be sure to include your name, country, and email address.
2. Only works that have not been previously published will be considered.
3. Works submitted elsewhere simultaneously will not be considered.
4. No set theme or season, and no limit to the number of submissions.
5. Works must be in English, no special syllable or word count is required, however, a “tanka" rhythm of short/long/short/long/long is necessary.
6. Poets should be open to considering constructive suggestions.
Response Time: From Marilyn: “all entrants will be advised that I have received their entry, but if you haven’t heard from me within 7 days, please re-send.” Please resend if you’ve not heard back within a week of submitting.
Email your work with a subject heading of "FLEETING WORDS" to the Songbirds Online Submissions Coordinator Marilyn Humbert: songbirdsonline@gmail.com
Results will be posted on this website for your perusal.
This website is Home to the aha Haiku contest (Hortensia Anderson Awards), the Fleeting Words Tanka Competition, and the Songbirds Waka Anthology.
Awards
All Contest Entries are blind-judged and FREE. Award Certificates for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place will be sent in an email for printing out on the winner's computer.
Certificates for the three Editor's Favorites in the Anthology will also be sent via a Certificate in an email.
Editor: an'ya
an’ya is a world-renowned poetess with more than 150 contest wins, 10 editorships, 15 websites, 25 books to her credit, and a judge of 50+ contests. She is the founder of numerous haiku/tanka societies, journals and haiku/ tanka competitions. an’ya has been represented in over 200 various literary publications, and her work has been translated into 95 language dialects. Her impressive oeuvre is at her website: tankaanya.com
songbirdsonline@gmail.com
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Submissions Coordinator: Marilyn Humbert
Marilyn Humbert lives on Darug and GuriNgai land in Berowra, NSW Australia. Her tanka and haiku appear in many International, Australian journals, anthologies and online. She is a member of the editing team for Echidna Track Australia Haiku Journal. Her free verse poems have been awarded prizes in competitions, published in anthologies, journals and online.
songbirdsonline@gmail.com
Webmaster: PeterB
PeterB is a promoter/webmaster/publisher for all project things an'ya. A haiku researcher, contest judge, webmaster, a well traveled retired marine/port engineer. PeterB is a part-time haiku poet, storyteller, still writing for technical and travel magazines in his spare time.
songbirdsonline@gmail.com
Donations
Songbirds Online is a bare-bones level effort, our time is "our" donation, and we only have our annual web hosting services, domain name, and office maintenance as expenses, but, they all add up, and the time invested to create SongbirdsOnline is immense for all three of us.
Every dollar donated helps cover the cost of researching, writing, publishing, and promoting the poetry you read here, we welcome any financial amount you can afford to help keep us online. Making or accepting donations in 2025 has become a legality, but, we always accept private, non-traceable cash donations ... contact PeterB at songbirdsonline.com for details. Thank you for supporting the work of Songbirds.
Our values
History
Songbirds Online spawned out of the original United Haiku and Tanka Society founded by an’ya who created the journal cattails, the aha Hortensia Anderson Haiku Awards Contest, the Fleeting Words Tanka Competition, and the Samurai Haibun Contest. This UHTS was passed on to others who decided to continue only the cattails journal and drop the contests. Thus, an’ya and Peter her publisher husband decided to keep the contests going under the name of “THE" UHTS as a separate entity from the original UHTS. an’ya then added an annual Anthology. The premier edition was haiku and tanka, the second year was tanka only, and this third year Songbirds Anthology' is devoted to Waka’. Moving on, Songbirds Online Website will continue with three contests, plus the yearly anthology, We are joined by a well-known Australian poet Marilyn Humbert who coordinates and receives all submissions and contest entries.
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Our Mission
Our mission at Songbirds Online is simple, yet profound, we are dedicated to preserve the songlike rhythm of Tanka and its predecessor Waka. In the wise words of established poet Amelia Fielden "to bring back the form of tanka, and its essential rhythm that's created by the short/long/short/long/long lines." From an article where Amelia quoted the well-known tanka poet Mariko Kitakubo "Japanese tanka build and build so that the 5th line is the most important line, and should be at least as long as the second and fourth lines."
Publisher's Comment:
As the artificer/cohort/researcher/publisher/web builder behind the poetess an’ya, our combined Japanese poetry society activities, of online and in-print publishing, websites, forming groups and societies, doing local and national event planning, printing literary newspapers, books, judging and critique, our promotion, publishing, web efforts have been around since the very beginning of the web (1997).
I have witnessed haiku, tanka, senryu, waka, haibun, haiga, sedoka, and even choka all being impacted by fifty plus years of Western-Americanized misinterpretation, the beat, 5-7-5 , and hippie haiku years, rules changes, ego spinoff forms, and tradition-breaking adaptations to the spirit and intent of each form… many offshoot forms were even corporatized/univeversitized for financial profits, further reducing Japanese poetry to where it is in 2025.
The gleaners of traditional Japanese short forms are today few, but, they do exist, and we know who they are ... with this new undertaking, we attempt to resurrect and maintain the lost respect for these old forms by creating yet another start-up… Songbirds online. We hope to bring back the disheartened traditionalists and encourage you to join us, visit, peruse, and consider where (and why) these disciplines need to be preserved, by your participation, or through just enjoying the legacy of traditional form Japanese poetry .
Look for us at songbirdsonline.com and contact us at songbirdsonline@gmail.com PeterB
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an'ya created the aha (annual haiku award) in 2006 as a memorium to Hortensia Anderson, the "aha" is a twist for "Annual Hortensia Anderson, and the " aha" moment". Hortensia wrote haiku and tanka, and collaborated with an'ya on many occasions before her passing. Submissions for entering are open between 1 August to 15 September of each year, with results showing up here mid-October, these contests all originated in the UHTS... after anya passed the torch at the UHTS, the contests were then dropped (Samurai Haibun Contest, Fleeting Words Competition, and the aha contest), we keep them alive here at Songbirds Online.
The songbirds Waka Anthology is the flagship of Songbirds Online, and the submissions envelope is"open" from 1 December to 15 January, the results will appear on this website mid-February, these contests all originated in the UHTS... after anya passed the torch at the UHTS, the contests were then dropped (Samurai Haibun Contest, Fleeting Words Competition, and the aha contest), we keep them alive here at Songbirds Online.
The Fleeting Words Tanka Competition opens for submissions between 1 April and 15 May of each year, results are posted mid-June, these contests all originated in the UHTS in June of 2012 ... after anya passed the torch at the UHTS, all of the contests (the Samurai Haibun Contest, Fleeting Words Competition, and the aha contest), were then dropped, we decided to keep them alive here at Songbirds Online. (sadly, the Samurai Haibun contest has been dropped from the offerings)