Annual Reunion

On Saturday, a pack of English students and faculty from the 1970s were hosted 

by the same dear person who manages, with her tolerant husband,  

to arrange and host this party every year. 

People had a very good time--

 as you can see by the demeanor of the above attendee and popular author. 

Just the day before, I had gotten such interesting unposed photographs of people

at Stanford's Anderson Collection that I was expecting to do the same here. 

But it was such a lively event, and the lighting was very different from museum light. 

People were having so much fun (and so many intense conversations)

that almost always when I pressed the button, their eyes were closed, 

or their faces were distorted by laughter and talking, or their heads 

were in an awkward position caused by laughter and talking, 

that I dare not reveal most of them here.

You will just have to trust me; it was a GREAT party!!

It lasted from midafternoon until bedtime. . .

To attend this special event, I left the tanka workshop early

and missed the writing and sharing at the end.

Tanka is a short form based on Japanese and Chinese poetic tradition.

One of the examples in the marvelous resource and workbook 

that Joan Zimmerman made for us was this one:

the sky drizzles gray

and tule fog settles in the valley's

every crevice

just a little out of focus

my last picture of you

Beverly A.Momoi

  

Simply Haiku; Simply Tanka, 2011.

Pay special attention to the sound in "every crevice"

and other aspects of repeated sounds in this poem;

because a five-line poem is quite short,

every small effect like this is quite valuable.