Gary Blankenship: 1943–2022

Bremerton, Washington

March 27, 1943 – May 10, 2022

Gary Blankenship was writer of haiku, tanka, and longer poetry who embraced online poetry publication and sharing in the early days of the Internet. In an interview for the Poetry Kit website in June of 2001, Gary wrote the following:

I was raised in a small town [Mossyrock] in the foothills of the Washington State Cascades, about forty miles west of Mt. Rainier. Like nearly every other farm boy in the United States, my life was average enough not to bore you with the details but contained enough angst and turmoil for more than a few poems. After high school, I joined the Navy and landed in Bremerton, Washington where I married (twice, widowed once), raised four children (three natural, one stepson), and landed a job at the naval shipyard. During my forty years at the yard, I finished a shipfitter apprenticeship, moved on to engineering technician, administrative office, budget officer, and chief financial officer. Along that journey, I was a union official, completed a BA, and irritated my share of DC brass. In April 1999, I retired and took up writing full time. I live on a one-plus acre plot hidden on the edge of the city with my wife, Chris, who still has four years before she can retire, two very old dogs, and the ever-present evil cat.

Gary explained his writing influences as follows, from the same interview:

Web-induced poetry has been a strong influence; but at the present time, the strongest influence comes from a mixture of minimalist and oriental poetry. The translations of Kenneth Rexroth (for Chinese and Japanese poetry), Arthur Cooper (for Chinese classical) and Lucien Stryk (for Zen poetry) are major influences in my work. With the addition of R. H. Blyth’s essays on Zen, I believe my work has turned an exciting new corner. (And the thing about new corners is we do not know what lurks around them.) In the end, however, the greatest influences remain my fellow web poets. I workshop nearly 100 percent of what I write, and am convinced I would not be writing today without the support and teaching that workshops provide.

In an interview for National Haiku Writing Month in 2014, Gary provided the following updates:

I live in Bremerton, Washington, where I retired after many years working in the local shipyard. I retired as deputy comptroller, chief financial officer. My primary interest is poetry, centered around tanka. I have recently published a collection, Poetic States and a Drop of Sunshine, from Writers and Lovers Studio, also available at Amazon.com. I spent the last year editing a haiku collection, Demlips, by Traci Siler. I am considering publication of several books: a reprint of my A River Transformed, poems based on Wang Wei’s River Wang poems; a set inspired by Walt Whitman; and a chapbook about infectious diseases (Ebola, West Nile Virus, and others). And in my spare time, I moderate the Erotic Haiku page on Facebook.

About his path to haiku, in the same NaHaiWriMo interview he wrote:

In 1999, I started what might be best described as a self study in poetry, trying most common forms, among them of course the Eastern—haiku, tanka, and jueju or Chinese short songs. I fell in love with tanka, the queen of forms. I studied the masters from Bashō to Sam Hamill and their contemporaries. And I threw myself into critique forums. The people involved in these forums are almost too many to name, but two deserve a special mention, Mary Hazen-Stearns and Thomas Fortenberry, who took me under their wings early. What keeps me going? Simply the love of writing poetry, but to be honest in 2010 I was burned out and dropped out, something I regret—mostly because I lost track of several people. But I’m back!

The following are three of Gary Blankenship’s haiku:

fire and smoke

invade my dreams

rice hugs the ground

new cans on route 55

await Monday’s pickup

Tuesday morning

cat with a mouthful

of feathers

attacked by crows

You can read many of Gary’s linked-verse collaborations on the Colorenga website.