on the cusp encore

Joy McCall has given us an encore to 'on the cusp, ' her diary of tanka started after the death of her friend and fellow poet, Brian Zimmer. The discipline of a single daily tanka has stayed with her, and her discipline is our indulgence. We can follow her through the winding paths of her native Norfolk as she holds converse with all manner of the living and the dead, animal, insect, and spirit, each as well known to her as the regulars at her favorite pub. Every tanka or ryuka is a small triumph over time and debility as she cherishes her life, even when her wheelchair is occasionally stymied by the thoughtless barriers of the mundane world. With a note by the poet and afterword by Tom Clausen, tanka poet and author of Growing Late