LYNX XXVI:3,October, 2011


Table of Contents XXVI:3 October, 2011		LYNX A Journal for Linking Poets



			BOOK REVIEWS Garden Mandala by Giselle Maya. Koyama Press. 84750 Saint Martine de Castillon, France: 2011. Hand-tied, 10 x 13 inches, hand-made paper covers, 52 pages, illustrated with woodcuts of botanicals from 1532 and pen & ink sketches by her daughter , Introduction by Michael McClintock. Contact: Giselle.Maya@wanadoo.fr. for pricing. To borrow the words of Michael McClintock in the Introduction: “Garden Mandala is poet’s open love affair with the growing things in a single hectare of earth in the south of France. In haiku, tanka, free verse and prose, Giselle Maya writes of “this one spot on earth” in a language of adoration and awe, as both lover and servant.” McClintock goes on to say, “In books such as this, composed as a kind of prayer within a diary of passion, we may all recognize and savor that mythos of Eden that we carry in the very chalk of our bones and clay of our flesh.” Beautifully said! not a flower in the gleaned garden by the window a Christmas rose pure white and green This handmade book, green and soft as new growth, brings art and inspiration for gardener or anyone who eats of the harvest. Giselle Maya combines the soul of a poet, the sweat of a gardener and gift for us all in her outstretched hands. Yes, the font in the book is similar to this one. I especially enjoyed the story of how she got this garden spot and the glimpses into the life of an extra-ordinary woman. Anemones, tanka by Giselle Maya. Koyama Press.84750 Saint Martine de Castillon, France: 2011. Hand-tied, 6.5 x 10inches, hand-made paper covers, unnumbered pages. Contact: Giselle.Maya@wanadoo.fr.for pricing. Anemones almost seems a companion book to Garden Mandala, yet here the tanka really shine. With twenty-four single poems printed one to a page the reader is lifted up on a wave of clear praise and poetry. learning to live with paradox I continue to garden sharing lettuce and radishes with a clan of snails fierce as tigers divine sand-bearing winds sculpt the limestone towers and dwellings of this perched village 100 Selected Haiku of Katoo Ikuya. Translated with a study by Itoo Isao. Literary Society’s Library of Aichi University; April 2011.Slipcase, hardcover with silk, 6 x 9 inches, 104 pages, ISBN978-4-8060-4752-0 ¥3500. With this beautifully made book, Ikuya Katoo, the leading innovator of Japanese modern haiku is introduced to the English-reading audience via superb translations. In addition, Mr. Itoo presents detailed explanations of Katoo’s work and its connection to Japanese and world-wide culture as well as a clear biography of his life. Ikuya Katoo was born on the third of January in 1929 in Tokyo. His father, Shishuu Katoo, was already an established haiku poet. It was no surprise then when the son graduated from Waseda University with a degree in literature. In the same year (1951) Ikuya Katoo had published his first book of collected haiku: Kyuutai kankaku – The Sense of a Sphere. Over the years 12 volumes of his haiku have garnered all the highest haiku and literature prizes of Japan and established him as the authority on Edo-aestheticism – the beauty of form as a vision based on Bushido and Zen in modern times. According to the full-some introduction the features of the style of poetry based on the Edo-aestheticism are “wit, an attitude of not showing an air of seriousness, straight-forwardness without roundabout expression, consistency, bracingness, elasticity, the manner of firm resolution, nonchalance of the unprejudiced mind, taste for humour and so on.” It seems Ikuya Katoo’s work is closer to Kikaku’s – Basho’s student, rather than to the Old Master. While this might lead the reader to suppose Ikuya Katoo’s work to only have the flavor of a 300 year old Tokyo, it doesn’t. Ikuya Katoo is a modern man and while specialists may detect echoes of the gay life of that period, he has developed his haiku into a universal light-hearted expression free from emotional development. Sometimes one can also equate Ikuya Katoo’s style with that of Shiki and his shasei writing method of “sketches.” For the English reader, this means that many of the poems are so ethereal or based on cultural implications that the poem melts and disappears in one’s hand. However a sample of the poems that make the leap across the societal divide are: under an umbrella we drank together – the spring rain people streaming up along by the river – a fallen bamboo leaf There are a lot of poems about drinking, or giving up drinking, the life with his wife, her death, and his companion in later life. In Gero the mistress by me and the autumn tints of the mountains. Isao Itoo shows each poem in kanji and romaji with slashes to show the three parts of the poem. The English is given without beginning caps (thank you very much for noticing!) or poem end punctuation. This small nod to contemporary English haiku makes the poems feel very modern. For English readers these haiku and their translation offer a good answer to the question I often get: just what are the top Japanese haiku poets writing today? Not only can you read and understand the haiku, Isao Itoo breaks up the runs of poetry to discuss each one. He fills in the cultural references and gives clear, understandable diagnosis of each work so the haiku student can appreciate current Japanese literary criticism. A Further Mountain Range by Fumiko Tanihara. ISBN:978-4-89448-638-6. Dust-jacket on soft covers, 5 x 7.5 inches, 120 pages, Japanese and English, full-color cover, ¥1700. The tanka in A Further Mountain Range are printed one to a page with the kanji given on the outer margins in a pleasing and easy-to-read format. The single tanka are combined into twenty series; each with a title that charts the travels of this adventurous woman. The joy of Ms. Tanihara for her life of adventure and mountain climbing is evident throughout the book. From the series “By The Summer Sea in Kishu,” I especially liked: on the weathered rocks of Goblin’s Castle I’m walking. . . alas, time slips away so fast from me As you can see the English is given without caps and with minimal punctuation. While many of the English versions do follow the tanka form, it seems the translations follow closely the Japanese even when the target language needs more space. While reading these poems I had the strong feeling that “here is woman I would love to meet on a mountain path.” Maybe on her many travels this will be so. All That Remains by Catherine J.S. Lee. Turtle Light Press, P.O. Box 1405, Highland Park, NJ 08904. info@turtlelightpress.com. Hand-tied, 5.5 x 4.5 inches, 30 pages, decorated end-sheets, $17. ppd. All That Remains was the winner of a chapbook contest judged by Kwame Dawes and Rick Black, editor of the Turtle Light Press and served to illustrate this new press’s approach to publishing. In many ways, upon opening the book, one thinks it might be one of Swamp Press’s editions but instead the poem pages are computer printed. Otherwise the book is given to the careful handwork of old time bookmaking. Catherine Lee’s only began writing haiku in 2007 after many years of writing short fiction, but already her work is winning prizes. home burial his rusted gang-plough almost hidden by snow again he sighs and tells her his name afternoon fog haiku by Kala Ramesh and My Haiku Moments. Published by Katha, New Delhi, India. Marketing@katha.org My Haiku Moments is saddle-stapled, 5 x 5 inches, 12 card-quality pages and haiku is a full-color folded to 5 x 5 inch book. What charming duo these books are! Published by Katha, a non-profit organization in the slums of New Delhi, dedicated to bringing the joy of reading books for children and adults they combine to encourage the study and writing of haiku. The book haiku is completely off the wall in that it is printed on heavy cardstock in vivid delightful colors of the artwork by Surabhi Singh and then folds in an ingenious way so that no matter how you turn it or flip up a page, new haiku by Kala Ramesh come into view. A marvelous way to delight the quirky mind. Kala Ramesh’s haiku are perfectly constructed with international insight and humor. waterfall do darting birds tickle it? shaded avenue an abstract painting of bird droppings My Haiku Moments is designed to get any child started with writing haiku. The information is succinct and ‘correct’ with modern English haiku. What a great change from the many antiquated versions of “how to write haiku” on YouTube and in printed books! These you could give with pride to grandchildren or get a set for every child in their class. In the back of the booklet are instructions for teachers, which show the many ways haiku can be used within other disciplines and closes with the line “And we suggest every teacher should haiku up her sleeve.” These books are the best haiku ambassadors I have seen and they need an international distributor so children everywhere can have the positive influence of excellent haiku. If I were not so old I would out on street corners selling these books! Some retired salesman needs to step up to the plate and do a good deed for haiku by helping this new publishing house. The Debris Field by Anthony Knight. Contact:knight.pages@hotmail.co.uk. Soft cover in full color, flat-spine, 80 pages. tanka and haiku. As for the price I've decided that for American readers it's too much bother to convert dollars to sterling and therefore I'll send out copies free of charge providing the recipient agrees to donate $10 to any American anti-war charity..Kind regards, Tony Knight With a wet brush I stand By the newly-painted fence, Second thoughts dripping. . . And preferred the weathered wall, All cracks and moss, I knocked down. Ankle-deep in leaves I pause on fortieth And autumn rakes me. breakthrough (very small caliber verse) by John Bryce Belbas. Southern Illinois University Publication: 2010. Soft full-color cover of artwork by Barbara Ann Fife, flat spine, 4 x 6.75 inches, 120 pages, five haiku per page. John Belbas, P.O. Box 442, Oregon House, CA 95962. the subway at night : a choir of angels singing in the hissing brakes a little piece of mountain breaks off and floats up – . . .a cloud comes to see Nipponese Essences by Adina Al. Enachescu. Editura Societratii Scriiitorilaor Romani, Bukuresti, 2011. Trade paperback with full color cover, 5.5 x 8 inches, 180 pages, bilingual Romanian and English, ISBN:: 978-973-7700-80-3 Poem given an award at the 2008 Romanian Society of Haiku: Stormy winter – an old woman with a bread dragging her boots Lonely in the night waiting for the glow-worms. . . with stars in my thoughts Dancing in the Dew / Ples Po Rosi by Vlasta Mazuranic. Ogranak Matice hrvatske u Samoboru. Contact info@ogranak-mh-samobor.hr. Trade paperback with full color cover, 5.5 x 8 inches, 96 pages, bilingual ISBN:978—953-6588-51-0 an old pigsty – rusty tools in the dung silent emptiness the village smithy deserted, silent, and dark smith’s gone to matins *A Narrow Road* by Ljubomir Dragovic. Liber, Belgrade. Soft cover, 5 x 6.5 inches, 106 pages, bilingual, ISBN:978-86-6133-055-1. No price given. spring fever – a restless girl hides it under her dress smooth moonlight. . . a girl’s bare neck presses the violin My loved Japan by Clelia Ifrim. Editura Universitara: 2011. Flat-spine, soft cover, 4 x 7 inches 38 pages one poem to a page, no price given. Contact: redactia@editurauruiversitara.ro Haiku inspired by the March 2011 earthquake in Japan. Deserted houses – the wind comes and leaves alone more and more alone White ruins, white words of a woman with her baby on her back – March snow two milkweed parachutes by Carol Purington and Larry Kimmel. Tri-fold, 8.5 x 11. $1 with a SASE from Winfred Press. 364 Wilson Hill Road, Colrain, MA 01340. It doesn’t always need to be a book! These two experts in tan-renga and tanka combine to bring a linked tanka poem as well as samples of their current work in a simple, yet effective way. I found this folded brochure-type very refreshing and completely charming. What a lovely gift to tuck into an envelope. There are just the right amount of poems for an afternoon’s perusal. This is a marvelous way to visit these neighboring poets in Colrain, Massachusetts, via color photographs. You should order this tri-fold just to get inspiration what you could do with your own poems. Not ready for a book? think of doing a tri-fold and get your work out of the drawer and into other’s hands! Childhood landscape – the covered bridge that carried me from safety to fear and back again cp wide snow, all else perpendicular – tall trees icicles off the porch eaves and I too upright in my solitude lk Modern English Tanka Press is delighted to announce the recent publication of five new titles in 2011. The Maternal Line: The 13th Tanka Collection by Kawano Yûko translated by Amelia Fielden and Saeko Ogi. High-profile professional poet Kawano Yûko (24 July 1946–12 August 2010) stood in the forefront of Japanese post-war women tanka writers. An intensely personal writer, who always enlivened her work with events from her own life, she had a distinguished career spanning forty years. In addition to several thousand original tanka, she published books of essays and criticism. Kawano also taught tanka composition at colleges and on television while working as an editor, lecturer, and contest judge. She was married to scientist and poet Dr. Nagata Kazuhiro with whom she led the prestigious Kyoto-based association of contemporary tanka writers called `Tower.' Published in late 2008, The Maternal Line, Bôkei, was Kawano Yûko's 13th tanka collection. The poems in it, written from 2005 to 2008, reflect her life over those years as a daughter, wife, mother, grandmother, and poet. Embracing the light and shade of her world with her whole being, Kawano has revealed that world to her readers through her tanka. Pamela A. Babusci, Editor of Moonbathing: a journal of women's tanka, writes: "The team of Amelia Fielden and Saeko Ogi has done it again, made available a wonderful tanka poet's contemporary collection for the enjoyment and appreciation of English readers everywhere. Without such important translations, much distinctive tanka poetry would be lost to non-Japanese. Kawano Yûko's award-winning tanka book: The Maternal Line is filled with tanka which will pull on your heart strings and captivate your soul. Her poetry weaves a rich tapestry of intense feelings all can relate to, from generation to generation. The Maternal Line is a tanka collection that should grace every tanka poet's library, a collection poets will read again and again, each time gaining new vision into the poet's life." Dreams Wander On: Contemporary Poems of Death Awareness edited by Robert Epstein. To be born is to die. We behold evidence of death every day of our lives, but our own mortality is nowhere in sight. Shall we relegate our own finiteness to the farthest point on the horizon, or bring it up close to discern what light it may shed on our all-too-brief lives? Contemplating death is not morbid! Philosophers and poets throughout the ages agree: The awareness of our own mortality deepens our connection with life. In Dreams Wander On: Contemporary Poems of Death Awareness, haiku poet and editor Robert Epstein has collected more than 300 death awareness haiku (and related forms, senryu and tanka, plus artwork) by 125 contributors worldwide, who have written with great sensitivity and acute consciousness of their own mortality. The first collection of its kind to appear in contemporary English language haiku, Dreams Wander On takes its inspiration from the Japanese, who have for centuries written death poems or jisei on the verge of death as a kind of "farewell to life." While not literally writing as they breathe their last, the poets in Dreams Wander On don't shy away from their own finiteness, but rather stare down the well of mortality to draw insight, wisdom, and courage from the unfathomable. Readers will find themselves slowing down and appreciating each and every moment, where revelations unfold about the great mystery that is life-and-death. In these pages, you will encounter uncertainty, humor, gratitude, irony, joy, love, and a universal longing to be spared the fate which one and all must face. Such contemplations have the power to transport both reader and writer from the present moment to the Eternal Now—an ineffable and extraordinary gift of our finiteness. I'm a Traveler: a collection of tanka by Kozue Uzawa. Most of the tanka in this book appeared originally in: Eucalypt (Australia), GUSTS (Canada), Modern English Tanka (USA), Moonbathing (USA), red lights (USA), Ribbons (USA), Season's Greetings Letter (USA), Tanka Café (USA), Tanka Journal (Japan), and Tanka Splendor 2006 (online, USA) from 2004 to 2011. Also, in anthologies: Haiku Canada Members' Anthology (2009 & 2010, Canada), Landfall: Poetry of Place in Modern English Tanka (2007, USA), and Take Five: Best Contemporary Tanka vol. 2 (2010, USA). Some of them, translated into Romanian by Magdalena Dale, appeared in Haiku: Magazine of Romanian-Japanese Relationships (2009, 2010) and Albatross (2009, Romania). I'm a Traveler: a collection of tanka is Kozue Uzawa's first published collection of tanka, selected from her works published in journals over the period 2004–2011. Haiku Wisdom: Living the Principles and Philosophies of Kung Fu, Haiku and Nature by Don Baird. Both born of ancient masters, the unique blending of Haiku and Kung Fu in Haiku Wisdom, gives us a seamless guide to exploring our human existence. With careful attention to the minute detail and beauty of nature, Don Baird brings us on a magical journey of perception, introducing us to the miracles of our souls, hearts, minds and world. By using the allure of haiku mixed with the elegance of martial arts philosophies, he allows us to open our eyes to our own journeys, where we may begin to revel in the grandeur that is our life Take Five: Best Contemporary Tanka, Volume Three (2010) Anthology, edited by M. Kei. The Take Five editorial team for Volume 3 (2010), consisting of M. Kei, editor-in-chief (USA), Patricia Prime (NZ), Kala Ramesh (India), Alex von Vaupel (NL), Aurora Antonovic (CAN), Magdalena Dale (Romania), Amelia Fielden (AUS/JP), Andrew Riutta (USA), and James Tipton (MEX), read all contemporary tanka published in English during 2010, including more than 175 venues totaling eighteen thousand poems. Sources ranged from tanka journals to social media to musical performances to chapbooks and many other formats. The result is Take Five : Best Contemporary Tanka, Volume Three, featuring tanka, tanka prose, and tanka sequences by 187 poets and translators from around the world. With an introduction by editor-in-chief by M. Kei, and commentary by the editorial team, Take Five provides a valuable snapshot of tanka in the 21st century. Cover art by Aurora Antonovic. Full information is available in the press releases for each of these books, published in full at http://www.tankanews.com/ To shop for these books, please go to http://stores.lulu.com/modernenglishtanka MET Press bookstore at Lulu.com. best wishes, Denis M. Garrison, Modern English Tanka Press Dear Authors, If your marvelous new book has your haiku or tanka written with each line started with a capital letter and a flurry of punctuation or in strict syllable count, save yourself the postage and effort of sending a book to me to review. I am tired of trying to be kind when I really want to scream at you, “don’t you know what modern English haiku and tanka look like in these days?” Jane
	BOOK REVIEWS Garden Mandala by Giselle Maya. Koyama Press. 84750 Saint Martine de Castillon, France: 2011. Hand-tied, 10 x 13 inches, hand-made paper covers, 52 pages, illustrated with woodcuts of botanicals from 1532 and pen & ink sketches by her daughter , Introduction by Michael McClintock. Contact: Giselle.Maya@wanadoo.fr. for pricing. Anemones, tanka by Giselle Maya. Koyama Press.84750 Saint Martine de Castillon, France: 2011. Hand-tied, 6.5 x 10inches, hand-made paper covers, unnumbered pages. Contact: Giselle.Maya@wanadoo.fr.for pricing. 100 Selected Haiku of Katoo Ikuya. Translated with a study by Itoo Isao. Literary Society’s Library of Aichi University; April 2011.Slipcase, hardcover with silk, 6 x 9 inches, 104 pages, ISBN978-4-8060-4752-0 ¥3500. A Further Mountain Range by Fumiko Tanihara. ISBN:978-4-89448-638-6. Dust-jacket on soft covers, 5 x 7.5 inches, 120 pages, Japanese and English, full-color cover, ¥1700. All That Remains by Catherine J.S. Lee. Turtle Light Press, P.O. Box 1405, Highland Park, NJ 08904. Info@turtlelightpress.com. Hand-tied, 5.5 x 4.5 inches, 30 pages, decorated end-sheets, $17. ppd. haiku by Kala Ramesh and My Haiku Moments. Published by Katha, New Delhi, India. Marketing@katha.org My Haiku Moments is saddle-stapled, 5 x 5 inches, 12 card-quality pages and haiku is a full-color folded to 5 x 5 inch book. The Debris Field by Anthony Knight. Contact:knight.pages@hotmail.co.uk. Soft cover in full color, flat-spine, 80 pages. tanka and haiku. breakthrough (very small caliber verse) by John Bryce Belbas. Southern Illinois University Publication: 2010. Soft full-color cover of artwork by Barbara Ann Fife, flat spine, 4 x 6.75 inches, 120 pages, five haiku per page. John Belbas, P.O. Box 442, Oregon House, CA 95962. Nipponese Essences by Adina Al. Enachescu. Editura Societratii Scriiitorilaor Romani, Bukuresti, 2011. Trade paperback with full color cover, 5.5 x 8 inches, 180 pages, bilingual Romanian and English, ISBN:: 978-973-7700-80-3 Dancing in the Dew / Ples Po Rosi by Vlasta Mazuranic. Ogranak Matice hrvatske u Samoboru. Contact info@ogranak-mh-samobor.hr. Trade paperback with full color cover, 5.5 x 8 inches, 96 pages, bilingual ISBN:978—953-6588-51-0 *A Narrow Road* by Ljubomir Dragovic. Liber, Belgrade. Soft cover, 5 x 6.5 inches, 106 pages, bilingual, ISBN:978-86-6133-055-1. No price given. My loved Japan by Clelia Ifrim. Editura Universitara: 2011. Flat-spine, soft cover, 4 x 7 inches 38 pages one poem to a page, no price given. Contact: redactia@editurauruiversitara.ro two milkweed parachutes by Carol Purington and Larry Kimmel. Tri-fold, 8.5 x 11. $1 with a SASE from Winfred Press. 364 Wilson Hill Road, Colrain, MA 01340. Modern English Tanka Press publication new titles in 2011. The Maternal Line: The 13th Tanka Collection by Kawano Yûko translated by Amelia Fielden and Saeko Ogi. Dreams Wander On: Contemporary Poems of Death Awareness edited by Robert Epstein. I'm a Traveler: a collection of tanka by Kozue Uzawa. Haiku Wisdom: Living the Principles and Philosophies of Kung Fu, Haiku and Nature by Don Baird. Take Five: Best Contemporary TankaVolume Three (2010) Anthology, edited by M. Kei.



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 XXVII:2, June, 2011 Submit your works to Lynx Who We Are		*Next Lynx* is scheduled for February, 2012.** Deadline for submission of work is January 1, 2012.