XX:3 October, 2005

Behind Summer, Tanka Poems by Kuriki Kyoko, translated into English by Amelia Fielden and Yuhki Aya; cover art by Jan Bostok with calligraphy by Ogi Saeko (Ginnindera Press: Canberra, Australia: 2005). ISBN 1-74027-306-0. 5.75 X 8.25 inches, 72 pages, perfect bound. Can be ordered from Amelia Fielden at 20A Elouera Avenue, Buff Point NSW 2262, Australia, for US $20, inclusive of international airmail postage (US bills preferred) by Jeanne Emrich

Streaks of Rain: 85 Haibun by Geert Verbeke. Printed by Cyberwit.net, 4/2, L.I.G. Govindpur Colony, Allahabad, 211004 India. Perfect bound, 8 x 5.5 inches, 96 pages, ISBN:90-8056348-X. Contact the author. and ‘Vegen Van Regen’ 85 Haibun door Geert Verbeke ISBN: 90-8056348 – X 2005 Publisher : Empty Sky by Silva Ley

Pomona Summer by Allan Briesmaster with artwork by Holly Briesmaster; Hidden Book Press, Toronto. Flat-spined, full-color cover, 32 pages, ISBN:1-894553-62-4 by Edward Baranosky

Der Lärm des Herzens, Haiku-Jahrbuch 2004, 15:21 cm, perfect bound. Herausgeber Volker Friebel, Haiku heute, Wolkenpfad Verlag, Denzenbergstrasse 29, 72074 Tübingen, Germany by Werner Reichhold

 THE REST OF THE BOOK REVIEWS by
Jane Reichhold

May Dazed: A Cinquain Sequence by the Cinquain Poets. Lulu Enterprises, Inc. 3131 RDU Center, Suite 210, Morrisville, NC 27560 Perfect bound, 74 pages, ISBN 1-4116-3399-7 $9.95 USD.

Rose Haiku for Flower Lovers and Gardeners, edited by Angela Leuck. Price-Patterson Ltd. Perfect bound, full-color cover, 6 x 6 inches, 108 pages, 2005, ISBN:1-896881-52-1.

Ikebana: Haiku by Vasile Moldovan. Editura Orion, Bucharest, Romania: 2005. ISBN:973-8020-66-2. Flat-spined, full-color cover, 66 pages, Romanian and English,  $15. Contact Vasile Moldovan, str.Birnova, nr.8,bl.M.110,ap.9, cod-051164, Bucharest, Romania.

Being There by Tom Clausen. Haiku Masters Mini Series No. 2 Edited by vincent tripi. Swamp Press, Greenfield, MA: 2005. Hand-tied spine, 4 x 4 inches, 48 unnumbered pages, edition of 350.

A Moment is Forever by Stanley Pelter. Hub Editions, England: 2005. Perfect bound, 8 x 5 inches, full-color cover, 84 pages, ISBN:1-903746-48-5.

Buddha’s Fingerprint by Stanford M. Forrester. Bottle Rockets Press , pob 290691, Wethersfield, CT 06129-0691: 2005. Hand-tied, 4 x 5.75 inches, 32 unnumbered pages, USA - $10. , Canada & Mexico - $11.00, elsewhere - $12.

Behind Summer, Tanka Poems by Kuriki Kyoko, translated into English by Amelia Fielden and Yuhki Aya; cover art by Jan Bostok with calligraphy by Ogi Saeko (Ginnindera Press: Canberra, Australia: 2005). ISBN 1-74027-306-0. 5.75 X 8.25 inches, 72 pages, perfect bound. Can be ordered from Amelia Fielden at 20A Elouera Avenue, Buff Point NSW 2262, Australia, for US $20, inclusive of international airmail postage (US bills preferred).

Tanka poets wishing to expand the range of subjects in their verses or explore writing tanka sequences will find inspiration in this translation of the fifth collection of tanka by the highly acclaimed Japanese poet, Kuriki Kyoko. The translation encompasses 315 of the 450 tanka from the original Japanese edition, winner of the Yomiuri Newspaper Prize for Literature, the most prestigious award in Japan for tanka. Equally at home writing about personal as well as political and environmental affairs, Kuriki composed these verses in 27 sequences as a series for eight issues of the quarterly journal, Tanka Studies, between 1999 and 2003. The title of the book comes from a sequence by the same name and the verse:

behind summer
behind the evening sun
behind sadness,
there must surely
be angels.

The book includes a preface by Beverly George, editor of the literary magazine, Yellow Moon, as well as a foreword by the Kuriki and an introduction to the translation by Amelia Fielden that is in itself a fine essay on the art of translating Japanese tanka into English.

Kuriki, born in 1954, became instantly famous in 1984, with her first collection, The Watery Planet. Though her background is in the sciences – Kuriko graduated from Kyoto University with a degree in chemistry – she went on to become a prolific poet, tanka critic, and contributor to various specialized journals. Regarding this fifth volume, she writes in her foreword: "Although I considered myself fortunate to be given the opportunity of having my poetry show-cased through serial publication, it was actually quite difficult for me to work on the required basis of "thirty new tanka every three months'. For, until then, I had always composed in a laid-back sort of way. This was the first time, in my thirty years of writing tanka, that I had been under any real pressure to produce. But while I struggled to meet these deadlines, I was also conscious, for the first time, of how vital poetry is to my very being. And I was able to experience to the full both the rigors and the joys with which tankaists are confronted."

The pressure to produce tanka against a deadline, however, did not result in any apparent strain in Kuriki's verses, which in this translation, begins with, "A Trial Printing" and a stunning opening poem:

heavy rain fell
all night long,
then with dawn
like a trial printing
a blue sky unfolded

There follow verses on the themes of violence and war in this sequence and others throughout the book, including references to WW II and other national and international strife all the way up to the September 11, 2001, attacks in New York City and the ensuing war in Iraq.

birds flying
through the August sky
stitch it together -
for the victor nation
there is no postwar

I've counted ten holes
in a slice of lotus root
and eaten it –
where now is the world
of massacres?

Her political verses are amply leavened with more traditional and soul-satisfying lyric verses in a personal vein:

is there a northern border
to loneliness?
this June evening
though I walk and walk
night never falls

I'd given up
but the indigo-blue muffler
at my neck
flutters as if to say
'go after him'

Throughout the book, one comes across quite unexpected and original references, reflecting an ever-ongoing pursuit of fresh images to use in a form now over 1300 years old:

when I stroll round town
in fine May weather
Greenwich Mean Time
is restored
to my body

Queen Hera's breasts
flying apart are born
into the Milky Way -
I, a housewife
gaze upwards

Translators Amelia Fielden (Australia) and Yuhki Aya (Japan) make a fine team, having just prior to this volume translated into English Kawano Yuko's Vital Forces in 2004. Their work in Behind Summer has resulted in a memorable collection that can only get richer with each rereading. Though the volume is marred by childish cover art and certainly deserves a more polished face, this finely textured collection invites careful study by both experienced and aspiring tanka poets.

After reading the following delightful verse from Kuriki Kyoko's first collection, The Water Planet, this reviewer looks forward to more translations of this talented poet's work.

'turn, ferris wheel
turn!
memories
for you one day
for me a lifetime

Kuriki Kyoko lives in Tokyo with her husband, a physician, and has one son.

A light shiver happens to you, when you open this remarkable diary. Oh, please, no! Poetry about the illness dementia? Yet, the first page already will grip you. No clinical picture, but an example of the art of living slides along. Day after touching, humorous, sometimes very heavy day. A surprising, intense ‘dialogue’ between old Sietje de Boeck and her son and ‘coat of care’ (‘coating care provider’) Mon, supported by his wife Mia.

the quince pears
ripen with felt like skin
mum’s scent is sugar

She suffers from a variant, named Pick’s disease. First it affects your personality, then your memory and at last your total health. The author notes down this process of gradual changing and losing almost playful and light. In a rich, sometimes rough, associative language. But in the haiku sadness sounds through:

touching her toys –
all in the past
embracing included

Mon conquers his daily pain by tactic and creative reactions. It cannot be denied that mother and son are cast from the same mould. Their exuberant fantasy always wants the free rein. That ’s why Mon let his mother go on living in her own house and art gallery as long as possible. Close to her piano, in her own atmosphere of artist and potter. There she can feel safe, surrounded by the treasures of her travels, especially from ancient cultures.

trembling fingers
enclose the chalice – vase
fragments in the passage

Mon takes a difficult daily walk with her. Included the risk that she tears loose and runs into a shop or building, as once the slaughterhouse. She was a great narrator but gradually her stories relapse to a childish jabbering. Dates, details and events become snippets in a sort of language – in – between. Mon stimulates her memory by practice in front of a mirror. He perceives that touching and caressing relax her most of all.

rocking to and fro
among smelling herbs
hands full of mint

The day comes that Sietje can’t longer stay alone. She is moved to the nursing home. Difficult for Mon. There he sees ‘a procession from the world of Jeroen Bosch. Fear for life, fear for death.’ Sietje falls in apathy, but gradually she feels better, surrounded by solid structure and kind care.

her room takes up
more and more silence
autumn damps the light

Finally Mon is able to weep, ‘though the universe is generous, in spite of all the waste away.’ His coping with grief is shown by pages long roaming in his mother’s house, taking all the beautiful items in his hand. He remembers her trips and events in a poetical avalanche, her favourite music on the background.

a lion’s skull
in the show – cabinet
back to school

Mon says: ‘She will become immortal. Small subjects will evoke the greatest thoughts. A sonorous cello will imagine a whole summer night. Japanese characters will create the blossoms. A peace of coral becomes a picture of Octave Landuyt. Each path refers to climbing the Kilimanjaro, because everything is related to all."

everything is merged
sunlight lives
in the smell of melon

‘The last hours need no words’. After her death Mon decorates Sietjes’ photo with a crockery scarab - the morning figure of Re - as a grave gift. Because ‘death is a mild final chord’. The Expertise Centrum Dementia ‘Sophia’ at Kortrijk, Belgium, says about this collection: ‘The way in which this process is written is original. This confrontation may lead to more openness in the matter.’ My conclusion: Sweeps of Rain consists of as many fits of sun. The 85 stories, not longer than one page, are constructive, in variety of contemplation and anecdotes. A book to approach in adversity and to appreciate after reading.

‘Vegen Van Regen’ 85 Haibun door Geert Verbeke ISBN: 90-8056348 – X 2005 Publisher : Empty Sky

Bij het eerste openslaan van dit merkwaardig soort dagboek overkomt je een lichte huivering: Oh nee toch, poëzie over dementie. Hoeft niet! Toch even beginnen… en dan ben je bij de eerste bladzijde al gewonnen. Geen ziektebeeld, maar een levensbeeld schuift voorbij, dag na ontroerende, humorvolle, soms ook zware dag. Een verrassende, intense ‘dialoog’ tussen Sietje de Boeck en haar zoon en mantelzorger Mon, gesteund door zijn vrouw Mia.

de kweeperen
rijpen met viltige schil
ma geurt naar suiker

Sietje lijdt aan een variant : de ziekte van Pick, die eerst de persoonlijkheid, dan het ge- heugen en tenslotte de hele mens aantast. Dit proces van langzaam veranderen en verliezen wordt door de schrijver bijna speels genoteerd. Met humor en rijke, soms ruige associatieve taal. Maar in de haiku klinkt vooral weemoed door:

speelgoed aanraken
alles in verleden tijd
ook het omhelzen

Mon gaat ‘dagelijks kopje onder’ door de aandoening van zijn moeder, maar hij wint altijd weer door tactisch en creatief op haar verdwazing te reageren. Prachtig komt naar voren dat moeder en zoon ‘van hetzelfde laken een pak’ zijn. Hun ruime fantasie wil altijd de vrije loop. Daarom laat Mon zijn moeder ook zo lang mogelijk in haar eigen huis en galerie wonen. Daar heeft ze haar piano, haar artistieke eigen sfeer als kunstenares / pottenbakster. Daar kan ze zich veilig voelen in haar ‘verleden’ tussen de schatten die ze meebracht van haar reizen. Kunst van oude volken, de Inuit vooral.

bevende vingers
omvatten het kelkvaasje
scherven op de gang

Mon biedt weerwerk door zolang mogelijk met haar te gaan wandelen. Met het risico dat Sietje ‘met haar ondernemend loopje’ zich losrukt en impulsief iets onderneemt, zoals bijv. het slachthuis binnenlopen om zich wild te schrikken van een ‘arduinen stier’. Haar geweldige verhalen veranderen op den duur in brabbelend praten. Data, details en gebeurtenissen worden fragmenten. Er ontstaat een soort tussentaal. Mon stimuleert haar geheugen door voor de spiegel dingen te benoemen. Hij bemerkt dan dat aanraken, strelen, een rustgevend effect heeft:

heen en weer wiegen
tussen geurende kruiden
de handen vol munt

Dan komt de dag dat Sietje geen moment meer alleen gelaten kan worden en het verpleeg-huis noodzakelijk is. Mon heeft het er moeilijk mee. Hij ziet daar ‘een optocht uit de wereld van Jeroen Bosch. Angst voor het leven, angst voor de dood’. Aanvankelijk vervalt Sietje in apathie. Gelukkig hecht ze zich aan de vaste plek, de vaste structuur en de goede verzorging.

steeds meer stilte
neemt haar kamer in
herfst dooft het licht

Mon constateert dat ‘het universum toch zo gul is met zichzelf, ondanks het wegteren.’Eindelijk kan hij huilen om dit alles. Tegelijk begint hij aan de rouwverwerking door mooie bladzijden lang in zijn moeders huis rond te dwalen en alle dierbare voorwerpen in de hand te nemen. Daarbij memoreert hij in een taallawine de reizen en gebeurtenissen, terwijl hij luistert naar haar lievelingsmuziek.

in de kijkkast
een leeuwenschedel
terug naar school

Mon zegt: Ze zal onsterfelijk worden. Kleine zaken zullen het grootste oproepen. Een sonoor hommelende cello zal een hele zomernacht uitbeelden. Japanse lettertekens zullen aan het bloesem kijken herinneren. Een stukje bloedkoraal wordt een schilderij van Octave Landuyt, elk pad verwijst naar de beklimming van de Kilimanjaro, want alles is met alles verbonden’.

alles is versmolten
in de geur van meloenen
woont het zonlicht

Als zij gestorven is – ‘want de laatste uren hebben geen woorden nodig – legt hij een scarabee van geglazuurd aardewerk onder haar foto , ‘als een grafgift, de morgen-gedaante van de zonnegod’. Want ‘de dood is een mild slotaccoord.’

Het Expertisecentrum Dementie ‘Sophia’ in Kortrijk zegt over deze bundel: ‘De wijze waarop dit proces wordt beschreven is origineel. Deze confrontatie kan leiden tot meer openheid’ Inderdaad, Vegen van Regen’ bevat evenzoveel ‘vlagen van zon’. Het is een verrassende,leerzame verzameling korte verhalen vol beschouwingen en anecdotes. Een boek om een beetje wars te benaderen en daarna echt van te houden.

Written and translated by Silva Ley

Pomona Summer by Allan Briesmaster with artwork by Holly Briesmaster; Hidden Book Press, Toronto. Flat-spined, full-color cover, 32 pages, ISBN:1-894553-62-4.

Written as a series of walks through Pomona Park, this collection of epigraphic verses draws common breath with a fusion of different sources. As Allan Briesmaster says in his carefully worded postscript, the verses are not intended as haiku primarily, even though he is well aware of haiku and its traditions.

I tap no image
off grey whirls below the pseudo-
Japanese bridge

Summer in Southern Ontario is a short season. Here one can feel the heat, the slow pace, and the fleeting moments in the underlying small miracles of life.

Wood Duck siblings' wise
fleet cruise, free of rivalry,
maintains paradise

with scant need to hide,
Heron targets his calm lookout:
through long shallow glide

Holly Briesmaster's drawings are never an after-thought, but very much in the foreground as a true partnership in the nature of symbiotic haiga. Pomona Summer is a collection not to be devoured, but to be entered gently, quietly, lest we miss this shared world.

Sun sparks behind trees;...
I'll leave.
- For me, or not, may
the rest stay of these.

I feel the "haiku world" would be hard put to come up with better. These are koans of fact, not formula. The dedication To Our Friends could as easily be With Our Friends drawing in an inclusively wide circle.

most fades...past recall,
while "art" undarks one small candle.
they flare on, till Fall.

    Mit sicherer Hand wählt Volker Friebe sein Material aus einem großem Angebot an Haiku, und bietet es buchtechnisch gestaltet gut leserlich an. In diesem, seinem zweiten Jahrbuch, sind die Haiku-Dichter eindeutig den Essayisten an Qualität davongelaufen. Ein vielversprechendes Zeichen, wenn man sagen darf, dass endlich jener Grad an Selbständigkeit der Haiku-Autoren erreicht ist, den die deutschsprachige Kurzlyrik braucht, um sich auch am Markt einführen zu lassen. Überdies sind wir alle mehr oder weniger diese ständig sich wiederholenden Rückkoppelungen zur japanischen Lyrik leid, und lechtsen geradezu nach Kommentatoren, die sich eindeutig und unabhängig dem Werk lebender Schriftsteller zuwenden. Diesem Anligen ist Volker Friebel gerecht geworden, indem er Kollegen Raum bietet, Wertungen vorzunehmen.

    In der Prosa fehlt noch der neue Biß, den wir, wie gesagt, bei den Haiku-Dichtern so begrüßen. Es bleibt abzuwarten, ob sich die in der Haikuszene Arbeitenden auch als Prosaschriftsteller weiter zu Lernprozessen bereit erklären. Prosa zu schreiben ist eine Kunst, und um Prosa und Lyrik miteinander zu vereinen, braucht es weitere Einsichten in die gegensätzlichen Techniken. Wie es Horst Ludwig anbietet geht es nicht, lesen wir da doch unter NEUES als Dreizeiler verpackt: „Die dreijährige setzt sich ganz artig zu den etwas älteren." Ein durchgehender Satz. Das ist Fortsezung der Prosa und kein Gedicht, erstens, und zweitens vermißt der in Prosa und Vers-Kombinationen bewanderte Leser eine starke Gegenkomponente, ein Ausgreifen des Dreizeilers in Richtung auf eine weitere Ebene, ein Paradox zur Erzählung, ansonsten die Kombination zweier Formen künstlerisch sinnlos erscheint.

   Mit Blick auf die größere Literaturszene könnte es eines Tages für Haiku und Tanka den Durchbruch bedeuten, wenn eine neu strukturierte Erzählkunst wirklich vorankommt, und der unter poetischen Aspekten eingefügten Lyrik den ihr gemäßen Platz bietet. Bekanntlich verkaufen sich erotisch aufgeladene, den Geist erfrischende Geschichten neben solchen (z.B. hier Udo Wenzels MAUER), die die Tragik der Gegenwartsereignisse heraustellen. Mit sozusagen eingeschmuggelten Drei-und-Fünfzeilern wären vielleicht sowohl Verlage und Leser wie auch Kritiker aus der Reserve zu locken. Allerdings unter der Bedingung, dass nicht sofort wieder durch Oberschlauberger der auch in Japan aus der Mode gekommene Terminus  Haibun hochgespielt wird, denn dadurch würde die Szene sich zum wiederholten Male Dilettantenschelte einhandeln, weil es nun so mal heißt, dass wer nicht aus eigener Poition zu arbeiten versteht unter die Nachahmer eingereiht wird.

Where would Canadian poets be without Penumbra Press? What a legacy of excellence and exposure has this company brought to poets and their poetry. Again with this newest book from Marianne Bluger, they have taken her outstanding tanka, wrapped them in a beautiful cover with tastefully presented Japanese art. This is all so fitting as this is the ninth book by Bluger, and she deserves all the care and consideration that went into the making of this book.

Zen Mercies Small Satoris (forgive me for mentioning it, but the making of the Japanese word satori into a plural with an ‘s’ hits me the way the use of the words haikus or tankas does) is composed of eleven series of tanka on such subjects as Bluger’s everyday life, her illness and her undying hope and belief in love. Bluger’s tanka are spare and unconcerned with form as one can see from page one:

REAL AS A DREAM

Real
as a dream
the beetle
shimmering – green
on my upturned palm

With eyes
shut tight I can see
blood beat
& feel
how the living burn

Marianne Bluger’s book, Gusts (1998), also by Penumbra Press, has been claimed as being the first book of tanka published in Canada and has garnered her many prizes and honor. The first publication of the newly organized Tanka Canada was named Gusts, by editors Angela Leuck and Kozue Usawa, as tribute to Bluger’s contribution to Canadian tanka.

In 2001, Deborah P. Kolodji started a Yahoo Group discussion e-mail list, called "Cinquain Poets." Over the years, this group, now numbering about 100, have concentrated their efforts on the study and writing of the poetry form called "cinquain" as devised by Adelaide Crapsey in the beginning of the 1900s. While following Crapsey’s pattern of 2,4,6,8,2 syllable lines, the group has also experimented with changing the formula, reversing it, making it into sequences, and in this book, using the cinquain as the basis to write a linked collaborative poem. The participants were: Andrea Da Costa, Cindy Tebo, Cris Staubach, Denis M. Garrison, Deborah P. Kolodji, Gary Blankenship, Hortensia Anderson, John Daleiden, Karina Klesko, Kate Steere, Linda M. Papanicolaou, Michael L. Evans, Claire Chatelet, Toni J. Layton.

In addition to the 212 verses of "May Dazed" (written in May, 2005), the book contains brief biographies of the authors. You can find a selection of "May Dazed" in the symbiotic poetry section of this issue of Lynx, along with another linked cinquain poem submitted by Denis M. Garrison, with many of the same authors.

Here, in the first of a planned series of haiku on various flowers, Angela Leuck has gathered a bouquet from around the world of 75 well-known haiku writers with their best works. The poems are presented sparingly with only one or two to a page, with generous division pages and small woodcuts that entertain but do not intrude on the poems. The book would make an ideal gift (hint, Christmas is only a couple of very short months away) for not only gardeners or haiku writers, but for any poet. Though the book’s title says it contains haiku, there are tanka included and I found this old favorite from June Moreau:

gathering
wild rosehips
along Penzance Road
there are whale songs
in the wind

which fit very nicely on the same page with this haiku from H.F. Noyes:

a salt hay quilt
tucking in the roses
for the long sleep

Angela, also the co-editor of the new Canadian tanka magazine, Gusts, has done a beautiful job of creating a very special book and giving everyone’s poems exquisite care. Her next project book is on tulips and you would be wise to get in touch with her to make sure you show her your own poems for the third in the series.

The haiku in Moldovan’s fifth book, Ikebana, are arranged six to a page with the Romanian version on the left-hand page and English on the right – which feels as if the author is eager to have his book read by others beyond his borders. With a title like Ikebana, it seems only right that the majority of the poems have plants or flowers as their subjects. Logically enough then, the seasons should and do dictate the sections of the poems. The informative foreword by Florentin Popescu is, thankfully, translated into English. He, too, seems very well versed in both poetry and Japanese culture and propels the reader into Moldovan’s book with vim and vigor.

In reading Moldovan’s haiku, I felt he had an unusual, but very welcomed, view of the world and of haiku. It is hard enough to write original and new haiku, but his slant on life imbues his work with a freshness that was not only refreshing, but also brought modern insights. Here are three haiku taken from page 37:

Love story –
only a flower in the field,
and so many butterflies

Dog days –
the thirsty shadow of
a white poplar

Neighborhood:
the sun and a daisy
face to face

It was surely the title of Tom Clausen’s series of haiku that inspired the cover of this, the second book in Vincent Tripi’s Haiku Masters series. The square book has, squarely in the center of the black cover, a round hole that reveals a strong red paper beneath. The reader is instantly there. Inside the book, the haiku are printed (handset and printed in Swamp Press’s legendary manner) on translucent pages so they "pile up" in shades of decreasing legibility so that only the poems on the page before one’s eyes are clear enough to be easily read. Another take on "being there" that adds immeasurably to the pleasure of reading the book and to the meaning of the poems.

Now I am going to make some people angry with me, but I feel I must say something. I know Tom’s work from reading and publishing it over many years, and I have greatly admired both his haiku and his tanka. I also know Vincent Tripi’s haiku which I have also admired in his many, beautifully made books. I also know that Vincent edited the poems in Being There. What bothers me, and bothers me even more since the book is so beautifully made, is why Tom’s poems here sound as if Tripi wrote them. I know that each of us who write, feel that the way we write is the very best way of expressing ourselves, but I also think editors have to be open enough to let the voice of another be another voice. It is too easy to like only the poems that seem to have come from our own hand.

Yes, Tripi made a lovely book for Tom, and crowned him with the appellation of being a "haiku master" – I heartily agree with this, but on what basis was all of this awarded? Would you recognize these as Tom Clausen’s haiku?

mountaintop
i am, so
i am

log bridge –
going to the end
then returning

Logically, and temporally, A Moment is Forever, should directly follow Pelter’s other book, Pensées, instead of coming after his most recent book, past imperfect. Especially the introduction, written by Pelter, connects the themes and thinking of the two books (as naturally should be the case). However the haiku in A Moment is Forever, which are arranged in either series or sequences under a title, have a maturity that was substituted for in Pensées as a rebellious edge. Don’t worry, Pelter’s work is still aggressive and "in your face" with ideas and thinking, thank goodness learning to write haiku better does not destroy that!, but one feels that the writer has made great strides in understanding of the form and practice in manipulating it. Books do measure our progress (if any is being made) and I am seeing as more of Pelter’s books become available, that he is very dedicated and open to learning. Here is a sample of Pelter’s work taken from page one of A Moment is Forever:

in the corner
a model based on me
dressed in her clothes

he wears her mask
white with painted lips
no one notices

mask thrown aside
he puts on another
and another

The sequence "mask" continues for another ten stanzas. Buy the book to get the rest of the story. It is worth it. In fact the cover alone is worth it. Stanley Pelter is an accomplished artist in his own right and the color cover of A Moment is Forever is one of the best I have seen. Every time I look at it, I discover something new and interesting. Inside the book are several of Pelter’s black and white collages and ink drawings – again worth the price. Contact Hub Editions, Longholm, East Bank, Wingland, Sutton Bridge, Spalding, Lincolnshire PE12 9YS England – it is worth writing a letter to them just to experience that address.

Stanford M. Forrester, former president of the Haiku Society of America, continues his activities for and with haiku in the magazine Bottle Rockets, and now with his Lily Pool Press. In collaboration with Vincent Tripi and his connection to Swamp Press, these brothers in Buddhism have collaborated in this collection of Forrester’s haiku with Tripi writing the introduction which is as succinct and spare as the haiku. Printed one to a page, the reader has only 20 haiku, but because they are set so perfectly in the soft cream pages, not only the eye lingers, but the mind delights in the gifts of observation with a pure heart. This sample, which gave the collection its title, is indicative of the quality of Forrester’s haiku.

buddha’s fingerprint
in the sand . . .
Zen garden

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Back issues of Lynx:

XV:2 June, 2000
XV:3 October, 2000
XVI:1 Feb. 2001
XVI:2 June, 2001
XVI:3 October, 2001  
XVII:1 February, 2002
XVII:2 June, 2002
XVII:3 October, 2002
XVIII:1 February, 2003
XVIII:2 June, 2003
XVIII:3, October, 2003
XIX:1 February, 2004
XIX:2 June, 2004
XIX:3 October, 2004
XX:1 February
XX:2 June, 2005

Next Lynx is scheduled for February, 2006.

Deadline for submission of your work
 is January 1, 2006.