an open field

Haiku: June 26, 2015 all the small things I see midges in sunlight Lynne Rees (Offham, Kent, UK) Selected by Isamu Hashimoto The Mainichi

Ethiopian Time by Bob Lucky. St. Paul, Minnesota: Red Bird Chapbooks, 2014. Single signature, hand sewn binding, author hand-numbered edition of 100. 5.5" x 7," 52 pp. $12 USD, including shipping to USA & Canada, $20 USD International. The blurb on the publisher's website says of this haibun and tanka prose collection: Bob takes the foreign and makes it familiar. Then he takes the familiar and the ordinary and turns it completely foreign. That's a pretty good summary of my immediate response to the work. The opening haibun, "New Home," talks about exploring a new neighbourhood, the affluent area, teething problems with the house's electrical system. It also shows us the road from the house slick with mud; there are watchmen carry[ing] AK47s; and recounts the plumber's advice to wear flip-flops in the shower to prevent us from getting shocked . I don't know about you but I generally, extreme weather conditions excepted, take the h...

The Hungry Writer: An Interview with Lynne Rees Lynne Rees started working with haiku forms in 2006, was haibun editor at Simply Haiku in 2008 and 2009, and co-editor, with Jo Pacsoo, of the British Haiku Society's Haibun Anthology, The Unseen Wind (2010). In 2011, she jointly edited, along with Nigel Jenkins and Ken Jones, another country, haiku poetry from Wales . Lynne has also published Learning How to Fall (poetry, 2005), The Oven House (novel, 2008), Messages (flash fiction collaboration with Sarah Salway, 2008), forgiving the rain (haibun, 2012) and Real Port Talbot (travel guide, local history & memoir, 2013). JW: Let me ask first, with your permission, about your personal background. You come from Wales and I wonder what influence, if any, this circumstance had on your literary development and interests. The population of Wales is small when measured on the world's scale and Welsh history and culture are unique. Was a Welsh sensibility or identity form...