back

XXVII:1
February, 2012

LYNX  
A Journal for Linking Poets  
  
   
     
     

 

BOOK REVIEWS


Wild Violets, Yuki Teikei Haiku Society Members’ Anthology 2011 Edited by Jerry Ball and J. Zimmerman ISBN 978-0-9745404-9-8. YTHS: www.youngleaves.org

Review by Alan Summers

VIOLETS

The anthology showcases seasonally focused haiku from its members; a summary of winners from the Tokutomi Memorial Haiku Contest (2010); haibun; and essays. Ann Bendixen’s fine interior art as folding inserts open out into larger pages that work as fine art subject dividers: a great idea, and very practical.  An idea of her dramatic and effective touch of colour is shown with the full colour book covers.

I would like to state that this is a most beautifully put together book by a great team, and my only regret, and worry, is that the book may have already sold out but I see on their homepage that a second printing has been authorized.  Do check the Society’s home page on a regular basis, and even ask if you can get advance orders, it will sell out!

So many haiku to choose from, but here are a handful:

witching hour
a cloud slips away
from the moon

Christopher Herold

 

his oxygen tube
stretches the length of the house
winter seclusion

Deborah P. Kolodji

 

spider silk
it too has come to ruin
under the cherry tree

Michael McClintock

By way of a review I will be addressing one essay in particular as it covers a contentious subject, possibly even deemed controversial in some quarters.

This Editors' Greeting that introduces the anthology includes this paragraph:

The first three essays concern our core tools. Patricia J. Machmiller discusses the considerable value of the kigo. In 2010, she led several one-day seasonal workshops to study the use of the kigo in haiku. Her essay "Kigo: A Poetic Device in English Too" opens the essay section because the kigo is the bedrock of our study. Anne Homan, lead-editor of the San Francisco Bay Area Nature Guide and Saijiki (first published in 2010) shows us the importance of a saijiki (a kigo dictionary) and YTHS's process of constructing one. Deborah Kolodji addresses the ginko (the practice of writing haiku while walking).

 

The anthology's title is from a haiku by Patricia J. Machmiller:

   the little child
   wanting only to be held—
   wild violets

For anyone not familiar with Patricia J. Machmiller: http://www.americanhaikuarchives.org/boardmembers/PatriciaJMachmiller.html

Machmiller approaches the subject in an intelligent open manner, giving a clean clear introduction about kigo for those new or even familiar with haiku.

She explains that kigo (plural and singular spelling) are devices used in haiku and renga and are symbolic of a season, and hold the power of allusion to literary, religious, and historical references.  This simple statement holds a key, if not the key, to the ongoing debate whether non-Japanese writers can be allowed to use the kigo device.

Kigo have had two histories, one of a poetical device that resonated deeply with writers before, during, and shortly after Matsuo Bashō, on a level that may have included a genuinely deeply felt emotional set of triggers and insights for both writers and selected readers. But which readers, of what socio-economic or cultural background?  Was kigo limited to aristocratic circles and later also to the emerging and dominant merchant classes of the new middle classes?

Bashō made renga and its starting verse of hokku (later to morph into haiku) more accessible, to a wider audience. But were the ordinary working class members able to be allowed access to enjoyment of haikai literature (namely renga, and standalone hokku, later haiku) and its devices including kigo?

My preamble is to wonder whether the kigo was purely an academically created and driven poetic (literary) device privy to just an elite, perhaps articulated in an exclusive manner from working class people’s awareness of the natural world around them via their agrarian ties. We know that the post-agrarian society entering the industrial age had access to writing implements, and paper and card, and may have utilised seasonal words and phrases in their greeting cards and letters, as well as poetry, but were these the same as kigo, or early naïve attempts?

The second history is of the increase of centralising kigo despite Japan’s different climates from the South to the North of its islands.  Bureaucracy decreed that kigo became regimented, and pre-eminence given to those that related to the environs of the old capital of Kyoto, and the newly emerging capital of Edo aka current day Tokyo.

Is kigo really the Japanese people’s collective consciousness, and so all non-Japanese people must be excluded? Or the secured preserve of a few?

We know that hokku and haiku began to be readily available under two American actions, the mid 19th Century arrival of US black ships brokering an end to isolation for Japan and opening up of world trade; and the 1945-1952 Occupation of Japan after WWII.  Japanese artists welcomed these actions and embraced Western art, which influenced haiku poetry, and of course the West were introduced to Japanese art including poetry.

Why the resistance regarding haiku’s most potent tool, namely kigo, when haiku already started to absorb some Western techniques under Shiki?  Would we, should we, insist that Japanese writers desist from writing Italian (or English) sonnets if they so desired?  Of course not, and at least sonnets in English have been done.

I wonder if the mystification of the Japanese people by Westerners is bordering on not only mistaken beliefs, as if the Japanese people were separate from all other cultures and races, but encompasses patronising characteristics which are disingenuous, and precariously close to an odd form of  inverted racism.

The West is a larger group of poets than ever before, and joined by those in other nations, who look to Japan’s haiku as one kind of inspiration or another.  The one great strength of Japanese haikai tradition is to share, and the non-Japanese nations also share by reading each other’s work unless there is censorship imposed on them.

And certainly poets since Milton have strived to read widely, and absorb widely the many methods of other poets, of anything that could inform their work. I am often reminded of Bill Manhire’s poem On Originality: http://www.nzepc.auckland.ac.nz/authors/manhire/originality.asp

These last two verses sum up my own approach to poetry, where I long ago left my early misinformed isolationist stance, and fear of contamination, so common amongst many poets first starting out; where we avoid the influence by others, of whatever nation or race.

It is a difficult world.
Each word is another bruise.

This is my nest of weapons.
This is my lyrical foliage.

We know poets concern themselves with form (or genre) with its shapes and techniques, and yet out of all forms and genres of poetry worldwide it seems there is almost an embargo on haiku with its most telling technique, that of the kigo. Where it is common practice in poetry to utilise and adapt new and old techniques from other lands, it is almost seen as verboten, and actually anti-Japanese to use kigo, and label it as such. I feel that both Bashō and Shiki would have been perplexed at this block in a poet’s attitude, and a potentially dangerous chink in their arsenal.

Merely calling something a season word or a seasonal reference, if a non-Japanese writer attempts haiku, could be misleading and unfairly limiting both to writers and readers of haiku outside Japan, especially if the word(s) go beyond just the spelling out of a season.

I agree with Machmiller when she says: “…I do not believe that the Japanese have a lock on kigo…”

Unlike Machmiller I feel it’s time to make saijiki (the kigo dictionary) a regular actuality in countries where there occurs a large number of haiku and renga writers. This process needs to be fluid and inclusive: not an exclusive club for elite literati to dictate to lesser mortals. As well as potential new strains of  inverted racism, I worry that an ongoing inverted snobbery has gone on for too long both in Japan, and in the West.  Or is it misguided rose-tinted spectacles placed on a fainting goat? 

Machmiller states how certain words and phrases in Western culture already operate as kigo. I don’t intend to quote or reveal any more of Machmiller’s essay, as I want the anthology (in its entirety) to be part of many a haiku poet’s reference library.

On a final note, it seems that the terms kigo and its partner term kidai are Post-Isolation Japan:

“After haiku became a fully independent genre, the term "kigo" was coined by Otsuzi Ōsuga (1881-1920) in 1908. "Kigo" is thus a new term for the new genre approach of "haiku." So, when we are looking historically at hokku or haikai stemming from the renga tradition, it seems best to use the term "kidai." Although the term "kidai" is itself new—coined by Hekigotō Kawahigashi in 1907!

Itō, Yūki. The Heart in Season: Sampling the Gendai Haiku Non-season Muki Saijiki, preface in Simply Haiku vol 4 no 3, 2006.

This was originally reviewed in: Notes from the Gean Vol. 3, Issue 3 December 2011

 

 

 

Beyond the Reach of My Chopsticks, New and Selected Haiku by Fay Aoyagi. Blue Willow Press http://fayaoyagi.wordpress.com/

Review by Alan Summers

fay
 (photo by Garry Gay)

Fay Aoyagi’s haiku collections are a must for anyone serious about haiku, in my opinion.  Fortunately for anyone who has missed out on her earlier work we have the extra bonus that her latest collection also includes a Selected Haiku section showcasing work from both of her previous collections.

Aoyagi’s first haiku collection was a landmark book when it looked worryingly possible that haiku may finally, at least in English, become dried up like one of those tumbleweeds [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tumbleweed ] you often saw in Westerns to show a town had died, become a ghost town.  That’s what seemed to be the final logical outcome until books of the refreshing quality as in Chrysanthemum Love appeared.

There may appear to be a lot of jockeying at present about who will be remembered as a haiku writer, outside of Japan, on a world stage level.  I would suggest, whether you are new, or a seasoned reader, to haiku, to search carefully which books you add to your haiku library.  If you are a writer of haiku as well, only quality reading will inform your own writing. 

There are few haiku writers who can harness, seamlessly, the old and the new, or can break out of a perceived mould of what a haiku should be, and what a haiku writer should be.  All I can say is look out for them, and keep their books close to your side, and be particular about which haiku books build and increase your library.

I have my own list of authors who I see as the real thing, and some writers know that I include them, and I am always on the lookout for new exciting writers.   I have high expectations after the stop start developments of the 1990s.  Although the 21st Century is still new, barely over its first decade, we need more writers of Aoyagi’s qualities to cement haiku in the West as a true tradition, and not as a strange experiment. Aoyagi is the real thing, and I urge you to beg, borrow, or steal her earlier collections, and if you are quick, you can even purchase her latest collection.

Just a few of her haiku, but you’ll find yourself both reading from cover to cover, and dipping in and out.  The book is a pleasure to hold and look at, and is a suitably convenient size and shape to find permanent residence in a coat pocket.

low winter moon
just beyond the reach
of my chopsticks

who will write
my obituary?
winter persimmon

plum blossoms
a specimen of my dream
sent to the lab

simmering tofu–
father asks where I intend
to be buried

slow ceiling fan
a town hall meeting
of the pet shop goldfish

pastel-colored day
a password
for the budding willow

A slighter longer version was originally reviewed in:
Notes from the Gean Vol. 3, Issue 3 December 2011

 

 

Haiku Wisdom. Living the Principles and Philosophies of Kung Fu, Haiku and Nature, by Don Baird. Modern English Tanka Press Baltimore, Maryland, 2011. ISBN 978-1-935398-25-7

A Review by Colin Stewart Jones

haikuwisdomcover.jpg

I did wonder how to approach this book—whether to read it as a self-help book with haiku attached or a book of haiku containing motivational teaching—the simple fact is Haiku Wisdom is both and I need not have worried—the key to its reading is to sit a while and listen to tried and tested advice, as a diligent student would.

Baird is a master martial artist and an award winning haiku poet and he is, no doubt, a teacher of great merit too. Baird does not preach nor does he ask anything of his students that he has not or would not do himself, rather, he adopts the warm conversational tone of a favourite uncle. He often reminds us of the importance of play and the playground; where much of our learning is gained and to above all keep that lightness of touch – karumi – in all that we do.

This is a playful book which has some seriously good advice, for anyone who would receive it, and as one would expect from a true master of Kung Fu, Baird, advocates order and discipline over fighting. Though I have never seen Baird in full fighting mode I’d bet, that if his teachings and haiku are anything to go by, he kicks ass—but I also know he’d rather talk you round first.

Baird’s haiku often pose a kind of question which his prose answers.
 
indoor cat
... outdoor cat

nose to nose

I will not supply you with the resolution—I have purposely kept quoting from Haiku Wisdom to a minimum because it is just one of those books that you have to read to get. This is a truly unique haiku book and there is part of me that eagerly awaits the follow up but then the student in me knows that there can be no more until I have learned what has already been put to me. Haiku Wisdom may take around ninety minutes to read but there is a lifetime of teaching, contained within, to put into practice.

A thoroughly recommended read!

 

 

 

Snow Moon: haiku and haibun by Steven Carter. Alba Publishing, Uxbridge, UK, 2011. ISBN 978-0-9551254-4-7
Review by Colin Stewart Jones

SnowMooncover.jpg

‘I’m in no way, shape, or form religious; and yet, and yet....’
     Steven Carter: from the haibun, Sawtooth Ridge.

Steven Carter is a retired emeritus professor of English and his writings have won several awards for literature. Snow Moon is his first collection of haiku and haibun and seems chiefly concerned with the writer’s search to gain some sort of understanding of his place in life. As literature students we are taught not to confuse the speaker of a poem with the author, while we can perhaps do this with his haiku, Carter’s haibun style draws heavily on his own experiences and there is no separating the man from the poetry.

bathing in its own light
            the moon
                        ....those who are gone

snow moon—
            rummaging the attic
                        all my fathers

As the above haiku might suggest, Carter delves frequently into his family history in Snow Moon: A history which is both violent and tragic. In the haibun, Descent, he tells of his paternal grandfather’s father who killed five men in a family feud and was subsequently murdered. In, In a Day Threatening Rain, we learn Carter witnessed his mother’s death; a scene which Carter seems to revisit often in his dreams as we find in the haibun, The House. Given the above, it is understandable that Carter is searching for some meaning to it all:

taking early retirement—
          winter moon
                      no longer part of something

There are, however, moments of wry humour, even if they are tinged with a certain sadness:

yellows
            of sunrise
                        the world’s oldest man dead    

While the current holder of the title may have died he will always have a successor to take place, and on it goes. So paradoxically the world’s oldest man never dies as we are, in effect, never without one.

There are poems about lymphoma and the resultant chemotherapy in Snow Moon—one wishes the author well—but the overall sense is one of numbness or rather a reluctant acceptance that the world keeps on turning:

May’s new moon—
            grandfather’s
                        grandfather clock stopped

Though I enjoyed his haiku, I believe Carter is more effective in his haibun: his prose style is tight and he has the knack of being sometimes informative yet still about to tap into our imagination with his choice of language. In the haibun, 1991, Carter describes Auschwitz in such graphic terms that we cannot help to be moved. Carter adopts many techniques in this final piece from Snow Moon— there is metaphor, matter-of-fact, and the downright mundane. Yet he ends with the cliché of a violin playing:

in the wind
   sound
      of a violin

There is, of course, the association to the expression where “Do you hear violins playing!” means that the person does not really give a damn. And this is perhaps the point of Snow Moon: we live, we die, and in between we suffer with no one to really empathise with us and our pain. Have you ever really told the truth to someone who has asked, how are you, and watched them baulk when they did not get the positive report that they are accustomed to?

cicadas—
the elderly man’s words
                        if you cry, cry alone


Recommended!

 

 

Taking Tanka Home by Jane Reichhold,. AHA Books 2011, second edition. Introduction and translation by Aya Yuhki. Perfect bound, 7.5 x 7.5 inches, 100 pages, Cover artwork by Werner Reichhold. Bilingual with kanji and romaji of each poem. $15 ppd. Order from AHA Books, Jane@AHApoetry.com

Review by Gene Doty

mid

 

Recommended

Asian poetry, especially from Japan and China, have influenced American and Western poetry in many ways. Translations and advocacy by Arthur Waley and Ezra Pound were significant factors in this influence. Use of Asian forms by poets writing in English has expanded greatly in the last half-century. Japanese poets and organizations now accept tanka (and haiku) in English as legitimate uses of these forms.


Jane Reichhold’s new book, Taking Tanka Home, exemplifies the adaptation of Asian forms to American poetry and the positive reception of work by Western poets in Japan. Jane Reichhold has several decades of accomplishment as a poet and editor. Her role in bringing tanka into English is described briefly in Aya Yuhki’s Introduction to Taking Tanka Home and further in Jane’s “Author’s Notes” at the end. Recognition of Jane’s role is shown by her being invited (along with husband, Werner) in 1998 to attend the First Poetry Party of the Year at the Imperial Palace in Tokyo.


This collection comes from Jane’s participation in the International PEN conference in Tokyo in 2010. As a result of that conference. Aya Yuhki read Jane’s tanka and decided to provide Japanese translations for this second edition of Taking Tanka Home. Everything in this edition is bilingual, a feature which should make it especially valuable to students of language and culture.
The tanka is a traditional Japanese form based on counting syllables. A traditional tanka has five lines of five, seven, five, and five syllables respectively. English writers of tanka have dropped the strict syllable count but usually stay with the five-line form. Like haiku, tanka are not titled, nor do they rhyme. There is now a Tanka Society of America that publishes a quarterly journal. The Reichholds’ AHA Books sponsors a number of tanka-related items. You may purchase Taking Tanka Home there.


Jane’s accomplishments as a tanka poet are demonstrated in many of these poems. As with any collection, the reader finds some poems that immediately strike home and others that are more distant. Returning to the collection, the reader will find other poems that strike home. Here are some comments on a few of the poems that struck me immediately.


Dynamism
What kind of movement can a poem in five lines and less than 31 syllables have? How does it keep from being a static image? Well, what if the image itself moves? And surprises the reader in moving? For example,


roots
of the fallen pine
move again
a deer comes into view
with a fine rack of antlers


The roots of the pine move twice: first, when the tree falls, second, when the deer moves into view, its antlers at first appearing to be the roots moving again. This fine tanka exemplifies how Jane’s images can move and express/create surprise.


Leaps
One theme in the Chuang Tzu, a major Taoist book, is the importance of changing perspective, awareness that one’s perspective is always relative. There are several examples of leaps in perspective in this collection. The poem above is an example on a small scale.


granite basin
only inches deep
with snowmelt
yet the depths of heaven
bring every star to it


This tanka, of course, also has the leap in perception as the deer/pine tanka. The leap in the next one has a fairy tale resonance:


in high mountains
suddenly the round moon
full of concern
leaves her place in the sky
to check on the lone traveler


The reticence of tanka saves this poem from sentimentality. The care of the moon for the traveler seems very natural.
Sometimes the leap is internal, proprioceptive:


in a fog
with no east or west
my confusion
seems as if I am wearing
the day wrong side out


Personally, I’ve worn more days “wrong side out” than I can count.


Metaphysical Tanka
The last poetry in the book is a series of five tanka, “Unrecognized Friends.” Aya Yuhki calls them “metaphysical.” They are abstract and epigrammatic; appropriately to the label “metaphysical,” the diction and imagery of these tanka is abstract, asking the reader to compile meaning from them. Fortunately, these tanka do not state their meanings as overtly as this description may suggest. These poems are my least favorite in the book, but that’s a matter of taste. Here is the one that speaks to me most strongly:


grief
the tunnel of love
lengthened
by our moments together
swift passing days

 

 

Haiku 21: an anthology of contemporary English-language haiku
edited by Lee Gurga & Scott Metz, with an introduction by the editors.
Perfectbound, 205 pages: over 600 haiku by more than 200 poets,  Modern Haiku Press, 2011 (Lincoln, IL) ISBN: 978-0-974189-45-1. $20 + $3 (shipping) in U.S.; $20 + $6 (shipping) in Canada; $20 + $12 (shipping) all other countries
URL: http://www.modernhaiku.org/mhbooks/Haiku21.html Order site:https://www.createspace.com/3737478

In forms ranging from monostich to multilayer to interlinear spaces, Haiku 21 reveals a shift in haiku writing in English today. Along with typically haikuesque sensibilities come fleeting remarks, cosmic wonders, whimsies, dissonances, gritty and elegant meldings with nature, veritable koans. An eye-opening collection. —Hiroaki Sato

This is the most important anthology of English-language haiku to be published in decades. If you are curious to discover how this briefest form of literature has evolved in the 21st century into a novel and potent contemporary poetics, open this book! —Richard Gilbert

gurga

 

Just a moment please

This seems the editors' message spread with the Introduction of Haiku 21: "Come to our name-throwing, name-erasing ceremony, stay schooled and censored and follow our rules. Heaven save us from not yet occupied territories.

Do not mention disjunctive methods and Jacque Derrida's seventy years old deconstructive attempts without us, the scholars of this book, who want to appear as the inventors of those and other terms.

Don't jump out of the single-verse-theory into sequences; refuse mentioning more than one-hundred years old multi-genre poetry, let alone Symbiotic Arts of the western hemisphere. Do not nibble on the scented oils of long verse-text-collaborations- they may ruin kids playing in sand castles. Bury older guide books on the subject of "how-to.""

 

It's the late-comers' fate running contra miles of stored Arabian/Western old and contemporary poetry- right, at the world's uncountable libraries. Out of those sources it was where the Japanese in the 20th century learned and than changed their haiku-concepts- late, yes, but let's not ignore it- some did it painfully consequent.
Does one have to worry about Shirane's mind-set? Did he fantasize himself into absurd conclusions on who did what and when concerning Symbolismus and Surrealismus throughout the European literary world?

Keep an eye on the many discrepancies and twists in Haiku 21, it's probably part of a method. The editors very likely realized that it does not work in the long run but they didn't know any better right now.
You should look at the net: There is a long never leached LYNX greeting the many privileged writers glad not to be published under "ku".

How about becoming your own fata-morgana and take off for a swim in your waters' verbal abilities organizing themselves?

Werner Reichhold


Armadillo Basket by Helen Buckingham. Waterloo Press, 95 Wick Hall, Furze Hill, Hove, East Sussex, BN3 1NG. Trade Paperback, full-color cover, 6 x 9 inches, 70 pages, £10. Contact: waterloopress@hotmail.co.uk
Review by Jane Reichhold

buck

As you can see, this professionally made cover with an intriguing illustration should tempt any buyer of poetry books. It is faithfully within the current fashions for books of serious poetry and yet I am mystified, however, by seeing the author’s name so large and at the top and then Armadillo Basket, the title, so much smaller in thin italics below.
This title, which in haiku repertory is very unusual, certainly piqued my curiosity so I sped over the early yellow pages looking for its source. It was in the haiku:

Dad’s shed
sorting through the drill bits
in the armadillo basket

I can see how a basket could be made from the shell of an armadillo but cannot remember actually seeing one. (Note: I have now spent 1 ½ hours googling and surfing and now know more than I wish to about ‘dillos – more time than given to reading the book.) That’s okay. I am all for new images in haiku and for any idea enlarging my horizons. Helen Buckingham’s poems set me to thinking about old haiku writers and yet, here is Helen – still so young. We who have stacks of moldering haiku notebooks are on the look-out for new subject matter and yet here is some too young and too new to haiku who has leaped over the miles of ink we spent in writing ourselves beyond our desire to imitate the Japanese to start where we have worked so hard to get. Kudos to Helen!
Helen Buckingham already has six books in her credits – the first in 2004 – so she has earned her ink-stained fingers via a keyboard. She is obviously kool enough to escape the safe shores of free verse to dip her toe into the Sea of Japan. Heck, she has already been shocked by manga; what is missing in her education?
Does this woman, who is lovely in her author’s photo, know what a pivot is? Any haiku techniques beyond Skiki’s shasei? Where is depth and hidden meanings? Am I too old to connect to the happening world of the young in England?

Season’s Greetings

soused streets    grief and chips
black ice      gritted lips

The Old Fox. . .

the umpteenth bitter
kiss

 

I do hope you will buy a copy of this book and read it  to see if I am totally wrong about her. I hope you can encourage her to become the English Machi Tawara. Write to tell me where to spread my ashes.
While taking my own advice above, I did re-read Armadillo Basket once more and found this haiku I could, would, should and did admire.

evening
the deckchair
a warm lap

See? It is so simple. Why can’t you do it like that?

 

 

dutch

Among the books still laying on my desk, still waiting for a book review, there is this one.

Yes, it is written in Dutch and I can only understand about one in five Dutch words but that is not important. What is important is what one community in Holland is doing for its local poets. I have mentioned the program by Pien Storm von Leeuwen, thanks to the materials and the translations by Silva Ley aka J. van Aeist-Versteden. Pien Storm von Leeuwen, a poet and artist initiated an art project in which local poets would have their poems carved in stones which would be placed in resting spots along the local river – the Dommel. Not content with that, he went on to organize the photographer, Jan Willem Sturm van Leeuwen. to create a set cards about the poems and where they are placed. Not content with that action, he now has published this book, Poosplaatsen Langs De Dommel. Yes, the book is small, but the pictures are marvelous. If you have ever been to Holland, this book will, within a page or two, transport you back there. If you have never had this experience, then the romantic, rustic photos of this book will make you want to see these places for yourself. The poem from Silva Ley is:

Trees and towers everywhere
as writing pegs in the landscape
in wood, in the sky
clouds and words
pass by in a rush.

That does need to be held fast by a big fat rock along the river! Wake up world and plant the poems in lovely places.

 

BOOK NOTES

Vic Gendrano's new book announced:
http://haikuharvest.blogspot.com/

Steve Holtje wrote a book review of Breasts of Snow: Tanka and Life of Fumiko Nakajo translated by Hatsue Kawamura and Jane Reichhold.
http://culturecatch.com/literary/fumiko-nakajo

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

BOOK REVIEWS

Wild Violets, Yuki Teikei Haiku Society Members’ Anthology 2011 Edited by Jerry Ball and J. Zimmerman ISBN 978-0-9745404-9-8. YTHS: www.youngleaves.org

Review by Alan Summers

Beyond the Reach of My Chopsticks, New and Selected Haiku by Fay Aoyagi
Blue Willow Press
http://fayaoyagi.wordpress.com/

Review by Alan Summers


Haiku Wisdom. Living the Principles and Philosophies of Kung Fu, Haiku and Nature, by Don Baird. Modern English Tanka Press Baltimore, Maryland, 2011. ISBN 978-1-935398-25-7
Review by Colin Stewart Jones

Snow Moon: haiku and haibun by Steven Carter. Alba Publishing, Uxbridge, UK, 2011. ISBN 978-0-9551254-4-7
Review by Colin Stewart Jones

Taking Tanka Home by Jane Reichhold,. AHA Books 2011, second edition. Introduction and translation by Aya Yuhki. Perfect bound, 7.5 x 7.5 inches, 100 pages, Cover artwork by Werner Reichhold. Bilingual with kanji and romaji of each poem. $15 ppd. Order from AHA Books, Jane@AHApoetry.com

Review by Gene Doty

Haiku 21: an anthology of contemporary English-language haikuedited by Lee Gurga & Scott Metz, with an introduction by the editors. Perfectbound, 205 pages: over 600 haiku by more than 200 poets,  Modern Haiku Press, 2011 (Lincoln, IL) ISBN: 978-0-974189-45-1.

Review by Werner Reichhold

Armadillo Basket by Helen Buckingham. Waterloo Press, 95 Wick Hall, Furze Hill, Hove, East Sussex, BN3 1NG. Trade Paperback, full-color cover, 6 x 9 inches, 70 pages, £10. Contact: waterloopress@hotmail.co.uk
Review by Jane Reichhold

 

BOOK NOTES

Poosplaatsen Langs De Dommel

Vic Gendrano's new book announced:
http://haikuharvest.blogspot.com/

Steve Holtje wrote a book review:of Breasts of Snow: Tanka and Life of Fumiko Nakajo translated by Hatsue Kawamura and Jane Reichhold.
http://culturecatch.com/literary/fumiko-nakajo

   
     
     

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, 2005

XX:2 June, 2005
XX:3 October, 2005
XXI:1February, 2006 
XXI:2, June, 2006

XXI:3,October, 2006

XXII:1 January, 2007
XXII:2 June, 2007
XXII:3 October, 2007

XXIII:1February, 2008
XXIII:2 June, 2008

XXIII:3, October, 2008
XXIV:1, February, 2009

XXIV:2, June, 2009
XXIV:3, October, 2009
XXV:1 January, 2010
XXV:2 June, 2010
XXV:3 October, 2010
XXVI:1 February, 2011
XXVI:2, June, 2011

XXII:3 October, 20111

Submit your works to Lynx

Who We Are

back

   

 

Next Lynx is scheduled forJune, 2012.


Deadline for submission of work is
May1, 2012.

Send to: Werner@WernerReichhold.com