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This elegantly produced collection of 101 haiku, senryu and tanka follows, more or less, the passage of ‘a year and a day’ in Swansea and its environs. Each poem has its own landscape page and there is plenty of white space to give the three, four or five lines a lapidary effect, as if the words are carved in stone or wood.
The author provides an erudite Afterword in which he defines the three Japanese forms he has chosen for this collection. None has been practised by a Welsh writer before and this is certainly the first book devoted to them to be published in Wales. There are, he reckons, about a dozen serious practitioners in Wales, though they publish their work outside our country. Perhaps the englyn, with which the haiku has similarities, has been the dominant short form in Wales.
The basic unit is the syllable, though that is not essential for an appreciation of the forms. The most important thing is the image, as in these examples chosen at random from a wealth of memorable lines:
sheet of newsprint
leaps beneath a car’s wheels
- comes out dancing
not just any perfume
but hers, months later,
on a passing stranger
street-sassy blonde
treats herself – no one looking –
to a leonine yawn.
the stripped elm,
after the storm,
shimmering with sun-shot
buds of rain
These poems catch a fleeting visual impression, a physical sensation or a haunting memory associated with concrete things; they are lightly done and meant to reverberate in the mind long after the book has been put down. Above all, they make something out of nothing, or at least out of the detritus of everyday life, which is then seen in a new light as if a bright lantern has been shone on it, however momentarily. It is eminently suitable for expressing the fleeting pleasures of love and the passing of the seasons.
Meic Stephens
It is possible to use this review for promotional purposes, but the following acknowledgement should be included: A review from www.gwales.com, with the permission of the Welsh Books Council.
Gellir defnyddio’r adolygiad hwn at bwrpas hybu, ond gofynnir i chi gynnwys y gydnabyddiaeth ganlynol: Adolygiad oddi ar www.gwales.com, trwy ganiatâd Cyngor Llyfrau Cymru.
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