“Nine haiku (one each from Bashō, Onitsura, Bonchō, Taigi, Chiyo, Ryōta, Chora, Issa and Buson) with rōmaji transliteration and translations into English by Harry Gilonis.
Nine short poems about the natural world, moving through the seasons, with two interweaving themes.
Amongst Harry Gilonis’s earliest publications, back in the 1980s, were translations from the Japanese published in Haiku Quarterly; translated haiku are embedded in poems from the 1990s; in 2021 he published seasonal words (Coracle), a hundred haiku in translation covering six centuries of Japanese writing. His interest continues in these two very different publications from essence press in Edinburgh.”
The beauty of grass and mist are celebrated in these 9 haiku, the texts are printed in grey on very fine Hahnemühle sumi-e paper which is slightly transparent, lending the booklet a gentle softness.
Sewn, 8 x 16 cm, 12 not numbered pages, (Edinburgh) 2022
