Middle School tanka

The sky was light blue
Ocean wind warm and gentle
mockingly cheerful
Houses stood empty. Siilent.
Crumbled under the sorrow.
    -Samantha Hollasch

Stench of sea and death,
Limp bodies, hanging from trees,
The peaceful sound of waves.
Stars flicker over barren land
Disaster struck this town.

-Sasha Woffinden

Unrelenting waves
A deceased samurai.
A ceremony,
Sorrow salutes spirits,
A garden embraces dead.
    -Billy Fujii

Darkest demons rise
From the depths of the ocean
Destroys everything
Dead scattered in the moonlight
Japan shaking...unceasing
    -Mark Nishida

Returning back home
water up to your ankle
searching across the ground
looking over lost memories
memories washed away
    -Jacob Fischer

Shattered bits o glass
Scattered all over the floor
faded images
disappearing with the sun
Setting in the calm deep sea.
    -Mikio Nakata

Middle School tanka

A city of power
to traumatized survivors
smiling photographs
familiar to ruined
sounds of exposed, raw, weeping
    -Kiori Tanaka

A lone pine tree stands
Ever so lonely, nothing left.
Every turn filled with
sorrow and despair, nothing
familiar left. Tears fall
    -Max Fu

Years quietly shedding
I’m inclined to feel sorrow
Dwelling on the deceased
Lost in the disaster zone
Everything taken from them.
    -Thomas Kila

Shards of shattered glass
a broken picture hanging
the lives of many
lay washed out and broken
just as splintered as the frame
    -Saya Okuno

Middle School tanka

Drowning in black waves.
Trembling, struggling to find light.
Few words said that day.
Screams and cries filled the drenched air.
No one dared to sleep that night
    -Emily Robison

Tears fall down her cheeks,
and drop into her hot tea.
Forehead creased with pain.
Her heartaches for those far away.
Are the ones I love okay?
    -Elyse Davidson

After the visit
I see the carnage myself
Their thoughts flow to me
I remember my own trip
and all the horror I saw
    -Matt Dixon


Their voices cry out,
The pain they feel unceasing.
We feel their sorrow
As if it were all our own.
We shall not ever forget.
    -Lauren Sekiguchi

Middle School tanka

The clock stopped ticking
Does that mean it never did?
the photos are gone
Are the memories gone too?
The past cannot float away.
    -Arahi Fletcher

Shattered photo frame,
Two children in the photo.
So where are they now?
Did they live, or did they die?
Did they ever say goodbye...
    -Hana Jacobsen

The mass destruction
I hear about in Tankas
To all the victims
I write in sorrow for you
I pray you can rest in peace.   
    -Fayaz Majid

Shatters of terror,
calm seas with no beginning.
Lonely pine houses.
Radiation left behind.
Life’s memories washed away.
    -Kien Malarney

Middle School tanka

Missed the chance to say
goodbye, everything is gone,
zero hope is left.
Up in the sky, the moon shines
In my swollen heart, love, tears lie.
    -Kanna Mah

All those red backpacks
water soaking the inside
All those red backpacks
Waiting for their lost owners
who are lost in a long sleep.
    -Adriano Tombesi

Cement triangles
Sprawled along the empty beach
Scattered hopes and dreams
Priceless family missing
Never ending memories
    -Grace Cannell

Abandoned wasteland
Empty road stretched to yonder
Nothing to be seen
Erased from the face of Earth
As if nothing ever happened
    -Ian McGuire

Middle School tanka

Where do I go now?
All thats left is pain and grief/
All that’s left is death.
Through the rubble and debris
Where in the world do I go?
    -Sei Antonides

Wiped out city
earthquake and tsunami
nothing is left
families are split apart
but never losing faith.
    -Eisuke Tanioka

It’s an empty land.
The full moon lights up the sky.
My mind tells me to go home
but there is not more home.
    -Sarah Nakanishi


Beautiful city
now empty, silent, darkness
torn from its beauty
no rain can wash away
the pain felt, it now walks alone.
    -Emma Watts

Middle School tanka

My eyes bulge in fear
water streaming through the door.
I plead for safety
I envision my future
But death is all I can see.
    -Justin McAauliffe

Empty house and soul
shattered portraits of loved ones
How could you live on?
When everything is destroyed.
My hopes go to survivors.
    -Courtney Halverson

A window shattered
Pieces of lives on the ground
Heart break and losses
So we pick up the pieces
To fix the broken window.
    -Andy Takagi

Screams echo, eyes tear.
Their cries are heard as if we
were there, really there.
Not just watching on TV.
Huge waves destroy Tohoku.
    -Lisa Watanuki

Middle School tanka

I was shocked, amazed
Glancing through voices of people
Printed on paper
Showed me pain of all the dead
Showed me hope of the alive
    -Hikaru Takechi

Looking through their eyes,
The disaster was awful
They suffered a lot
Earthquakes and Thunamis
Lots of casualties and death
    -Arnold Ho

The water comes in.
Flattening every house.
It just keeps coming.
Leaving a ton of damage.
Why did this have to happen?
    -Jackson White

Middle School tanka

The Earth starts to tremble,
Students’ eyes are wide -fear filled
Will it ever stop?
But above Earth’s mighty roar,.
The victims’ faint cries are heard.
    -Alexandria Tso

Earthquake, tsunami
Houses destroyed and full of mud
Everything is gone
Piles and piles of cars
Waiting, just waiting.
    -Georgia LaMacchia

What all their eyes see
are the stories and the lost.
But do they really know
how much the shattered glass cuts,
how much the water can take?
    -Amanda LaBarge

Middle School tanka

Standing on the roof
of a house flowing nowhere
the waves push the house
waiting for sight of human
alone not knowing what to do...
    -Brian Arai

Their time is up
Their hopes and dreams shattered
Like the broken glass
On the shores of the dead beach
home of the great tsunami
    -Katrina Deleranzo

Who know that a wave,
Was a chain of disasters,
Linking to death, pain,
Waves not only of water,
But ones of death and sorrow
    -William S.

Middle School tanka

Faces echoed back
in waves of experience.
Light reflected off.
transparent and opaque
forced to trust in the future.

-Sanna Chang

I suffer and wait.
My concrete tomb clutches me.
Relentlessly so.
but I will not die today.
I will not die today.
    -Dan Budge

How can you forget?
The lost; unclaimed; the fallen.
Daylight setting on
the once flourishing nation
now a crumbling foundation.
    -Amanda LaBarge

Middle School tanka

Dimly lit pictures
Unknown companions search
for lost images
Silent faces unspeaking
ink and clothing
faded white.
    -Kotta Katsuda

The screaming people
As the ground starts to shiver
From our ice cold fear
The ocean begins to weep
The tsunami is coming.
    -Sho Hatakeyama

Waka left by men
The messengers of the day
Of the Tsunami
Of the destructive earthquake
Left for next generations
    -Shaw Hagiwara

Middle School Tanka

Spoken words can not
convey sadness beyond the
measure of soft tears
perhaps only words crafted
by grief-stricken children will
    -Christi Throbecke







Tankas of sadness,
placed on top of music stands.
The song of tankas
singing through the air for a
reminder of all events.
    -Rachael Fuchs


Friends that I have lost
Due to fear of exposure
are nothing compared
to the loss of families
still searching for their loved ones
    -Allie Rogers

Writing Workshop 1

From Writing Workshop 1

Eleventh of March,
Friday, the end of the week,
Calm and peaceful day -
Then the tragedy happened;
The ground started to shake hard.

What was going on?
Shake shake shake it wouldn't stop -
It was an earthquake!
Shock and fear showed in the air -
Everyone ducked under a table.

It stopped, finally.
It was over. It was done.
People rushed around,
Checked if everyone was okay,
But it wasn’t over. No, no.

Tsunami, oh no.
Disaster up north, oh no!

Justin Novak

Writing Workshop 1

From Writing Workshop I

3/11/11 Poetry

Students sit waiting.
Waiting for an announcement.
Wanting Information
People shaking with extreme fear.
When will the trembling stop?

Kate Helwick