🌻Sunflower Tanka Submissions🌻

Sunflower Tanka 2025 submissions will open August 9th through September 9th, 2025. The theme of the 2025 anthology will be revealed on August 9, 2025. 

The theme for 2025 is:

How do we define dreams?

Dreams are often seen as a source of inspiration and insight into the human mind. They provide a rich source of symbolism and can serve as metaphors for exploring the line between reality and imagination. Poets use elements from dreams to create multiple levels of meaning, capturing the essence of dreams and their impact on the human experience. (www.powerpoetry.com)

Ambitions and Aspirations: Dreams can represent the aspirations and ambitions individuals strive to achieve in life. Unconscious Reflections: Dreams are seen as a reflection of our unconscious thoughts and feelings, typically highlighting our desires and fears.

Please understand that poems received outside the submission period will not be considered. Thank you.

🚨 PLEASE NOTE: Using AI to write your poetry goes against our publishing standards and Amazon’s standards. We cannot accept AI-generated poetry. Do not rewrite your poetry using AI tools like Copilot or other AI-generated tools. If you send us AI-generated poetry, it will be rejected.🚨

‼️ In 2025, Amazon will allow us to use Grammarly, Pro Writing Aid, Canva, LanguageTool, etc., for spelling and minor editing. Please let us know what program you used. We must declare these writing aids to Amazon at the time of publication.

Please submit 3 poems. We’re looking for tanka (5/7/5/7/7), tanka prose, and experimental tanka—s/l/s/l/l, tanka series Rensaku, *taiga (tanka on a black and white photo: see the instructions below) bussokusekika (5/7/5/7/7/7), and experimental tanka (garland tanka, tanka Puente, etc.) written in the English language on the current theme in an email:

Please write your tanka and/or tanka prose using the theme: (COMING SOON). If you don’t use the words of the theme, we must be able to infer the meaning.

The first letter of each line of Japanese syllabic poetry is not capitalized.

Tanka does not have titles. Please add titles to your tanka prose, tanka rensaku (series), taiga, tanka Puente & garland tanka.

To: tankatuesdaypoetry@gmail.com

Subject Line: SUBMISSIONS – CURRENT THEME – YOUR NAME

The body of your email should look like this:

First Name: name

Second Name: last name

Email Address: your email

Social Media Address: your blog address

Copyright Name: your name as the author

Spelling & Punctuation Programs you used: (We do NOT accept AI-written poetry. In 2025, Amazon will allow us to use Grammarly, Pro Writing Aid, Canva, LanguageTool, etc., for spelling and punctuation. We must declare these writing aids to Amazon at the time of publication).

One sentence introduction: EX: (Your name is a poet/author who loves finding the magic in everyday connections through prose & poetry).

Country: the country where you live

➡ Add your 3 poems in the body of the email. Please keep the poems left-aligned to the page, with two lines between each poem. Do NOT attach a Word document. If you submit a Rensaku series, please number each stanza/poem in the order the stanzas should appear. Thanks.

Sunflower Tanka only receives submissions by email. Thank you.

Submit between 3 unpublished poems (see above). We’d like to publish tanka and tanka prose, from the traditional to the experimental. All poems must be your own original work. Please submit only once per submission period.

Please do not submit previously published tanka/tanka prose. Every journal has different definitions of what “published” means. This is our definition:

If a poem has been published in another journal or on a blog, we consider the poem as published, so please don’t send it to Sunflower Tanka. In addition, if a poem appeared in a self-published poetry book, don’t send it to Sunflower Tanka. If you have any questions, please contact us at tankatuesdaypoetry@gmail.com.

As co-editors, we establish the guidelines for submissions, and we hope to be the first to showcase your talented tanka and tanka prose with the rest of the world in our first edition of the Sunflower Tanka Journal.

Poets will retain the copyright of their poems after publication. If you use your poem elsewhere, please add the line: “This poem was first published in the 2025 Edition of Sunflower Tanka.”

🥳 This year, we’re looking for five poets who have accepted submissions in this journal to volunteer their blogs to showcase the anthology for marketing purposes. In addition, these posts will be teaching posts, instructing readers on how to create one of the forms featured in the Sunflower Tanka Anthology. Please let us know if you're interested.🌻

Thanks,

Robbie Cheadle & Colleen Chesebro

* Instructions for Taiga (photo + tanka poem):

1. Sign into your Canva.com account. Look for the icon for CUSTOM SIZE. You might have to use the arrow at the right of the selections and scroll to the custom size icon.

2. Click the custom size icon. Choose the following dimensions: 1566 x 2541 px. You will get a blank template like this ⬇️. This size is for Sunflower Tanka. If your taiga is accepted, it will be a full-page image.

3. In Canva, you can make the template image larger by holding down Command +. I don’t remember how to do it on Windows, so you will have to Google that command.

4. Next, look at the menu to the left. Click the Upload button. You can see my image uploaded below ⬇️

5. Grab the image with your mouse and drag it to the template you created. Hover over the template and let it pop into place.

6. Click on the text button on the left menu.

7. Select ADD a SUBHEADING.

8. Double-click on the text box to get the text to disappear. OR copy and paste your tanka poem where it says, Add a subheading. You can backspace to delete any text you don’t want. You can grab this text box and move it around so you can get a better placement on your 300 dpi photo (required by Amazon.com)

9. If you highlight the text, you can change the font. Use the Etna Sans Serif font, 41.5 from the top menu ⬇️ I double-spaced to add the copyright: option g, on a MAC. Make sure you add your copyright.

10. Next, you’re ready to print. Click the SHARE button on the top right of the menu.

11. Click the download button. Choose the file type as JPEG. HIT the Download button.

12. Depending on how you have your computer setup, the download will be saved to your downloads folder or your desktop.

13. For Sunflower Tanka, please use Canva.com to create your taiga. I need all the photo images to be exact. Thank you.