Lit
from Within: A Collection of Haiku by Spring Street
Haiku Group (New York: Spring Street Haiku Group, 2003).
28 pages; 4" x 5.5"; paperback; saddle-stapled.
No ISBN. $5.00 from Bruce Kennedy, 62 Sterling Place, Brooklyn,
NY 11217.
This
is the eleventh in what has become the eagerly awaited Annual
Report of the Spring Street Haiku Group. Lit from Within
discloses that the health of this corporation is good. The
quality of the haikuone to five by each of twelve
poetsis up to expected standards, and production values
for the chapbook are better than ever. These books arethis
book isan indispensable record of one of Americas
premier haiku groups.
a
sky full of stars
the lone backpackers tent
lit from within
Bruce
Kennedy
heading
for Jersey
sunlight
on a gulls wings
Carl
Patrick
blink,
edited by Yvonne Cabalona, Jo Lea Parker, and W.F. Owen,
(no publisher, 2002). 20 pages; 5.5" x 8.5"; saddle-stapled.
No ISBN. $5.00 postpaid from Yvonne Cabalona, 709 Auburn
St., Modesto, CA 95350.
The
first chapbook from The Central Valley Haiku Club in California
contains haiku, senryu, and haibun by some well-known voices
in American haiku as well as some that deserve to be better
known. Give it a look.
The
cock crows out loud
With messages from his heart
But the flock scatters.
Kaz
Ide Jo
daybreak
the planting moon flirts
with Mars
Lea
Parker
Vraçanje
v ças/Returning in Time/Vracanje u vrijeme, haiku
collection by Slavica Vavli. Edited and with an introduction
by Edin Saraçevic; English translations by Andreja
Grad (Ljubljana, Slovenia: self-published, 2003). 60 pages;
20.5 cm x 13 cm (8" x 5"); paperback; perfectbound.
ISBN 961-236-434-2. Available from the author for a $10
bill and an addressed envelope at Slavica Vavli, Jakopivceva
21, 1000 Ljubljana, Slevenia/Slovenija.
Returning
in Time is the third volume in the Haiku Balkan series
and bears a family resemblance to Edin Saraçevics
Candy in the Rain, reviewed in MH 33.2. The volume includes
40 haiku, each given in Slovene, English, and Croatian,
arranged in groups by the locations where they were written,
from Slovenias Adriatic coast to the Julian Alps to
the capital, Ljubljana. Vavlis haiku are intellectual
and emotional, often close to serious senryu. The English
translations are better than those in most books we have
seen from southeastern Europe, but they still lack the grace
and flow of the originals. Here are the English versions
of the title haiku and another favorite:
Returning
in time
with an umbrella open wide,
and wet shoes.
Paintings
of saints.
Dust rolling
under gothic windows.
Full
Circle, by Rebecca Reid. 48 pages; 5.5" x 3.5";
hand bound in boards. No ISBN. $18.00. Moment Poems, by
Rebecca Reid, 12 pages; 3.5" x 8.5"; stapled. No
ISBN. $5.00. Both published by the author, 2003, and available
from her postpaid at 120 Pulpit Hill Rd., #13, Amherst,
MA 01002.
These
are two small, attractively produced volumes of haiku illustrated
with color photographs by the author. The haiku present
moments of experience of the natural world. Although not
polished, they are not without promise. Here is one haiku
from each chapbook:
October
dark rainy day
lit only by leaves . . .
beneath
the frozen waterfall
one black duck
Sierra
Song, by Steve Sanfield, (Berkeley, Calif.: Tangram
Press, 2003). 16 unnumbered pages, 6" x 10H",
stringbound. No ISBN. $15.00 postpaid from the publisher
at 1639 Bancroft Way, Berkeley, CA 94703.
A
sequence of 32 gentle lyrics by the internationally renowned
storyteller and poet shares the sounds and silences
of one place in his Sierra Nevada mountains. Like
the bird of his epigraph, Sanfield doesnt sing because
he has an answer, but because he has a song.
a
cool breeze
sends my song
back to myself
|