A collection of 108 haiku poems to heighten awareness and deepen our appreciation for the ordinary in everyday life Haiku, the Japanese form of poetry written in just three lines, can be miraculous in its power to articulate the profundity of the simplest moment—and for that reason haiku can be a useful tool for bringing us to a heightened awareness of our lives. Here, the poet Patricia Donegan shares her experience of the haiku form as a way of insight that anyone can use to slow down and uncover the beauty of ordinary moments. She presents 108 haiku poems—on themes such as honesty, transience, and compassion—and offers commentary on each as an impetus to meditation and as a key to unlocking the wonder in what we find right before us.

Florida-themed literary journal. Issue #1 features poems, photos, personal essays, photography, fine art and fiction and prose by Glenda Bailey-Mershon, Larry Baker, Carolee Ackerson Bertisch, Nancy Bevilaqua, Chris Bodor, Pris Campbel, Lance Carden, Alan Catlin, Charlie Cawley, Stevie Cenko, David Dannov, John De Herrera, Mary Deno-Yeck, Jim Draper, Brian Druggan, Daniel Florez, Tim Gilmore, Lou Graves, Marie Groves, Lynn Skapyak Harlin, Tovah Janovsky, Leny Kaltenekker, Jane Lynahan Karklin, LeeAnn Kendall, Beverly A. Bell Kessler, Mark Kirwan, Ann Kiyonaga-Razon, Rachel Layne, Michael Henry Lee, Antoinette (Toni) Libro, Dotty Loop, Susan Bennett Lopez, Gayl Angela Masson, Ann Browning Masters, Bozena Helena Mazur-Nowak, Kurt McGill, Gigi Mischele Miller, Paula Moore, Tonn Pastore, Lee Patterson, Becky Meyer Pourchor, Nadia Ramoutar, Kathleen Roberts, Rebecca Rousseau, Kimmy Van Kooten, Marie Vernon, Rob Waldner, Lee Weaver, Beem Weeks, Ginna Wilkerson.

This collection of ten critical essays is the first scholarly criticism of haiku by Sonia Sanchez, who has exemplified herself for six decades as a major figure in the Black Arts Movement, a central activist in civil rights and women’s movements, and an internationally-known writer in American literature. Sanchez’s haiku, as an integral and prominent part of contemporary African American poetry, have expressed not only her ideas of nature, beauty, and harmony but also her aesthetic experience of music, culture, and love. Aesthetically, this experience reflects a poetic mind which has helped the poet to shape or reimage her poetic spirit.

Poems of commemoration and loss for readers of all ages, from a leading writer of the Black Arts Movement and the American Poetry Society's 2018 Wallace Stevens Award–winner. Sonia Sanchez's collection of haiku celebrates the gifts of life and mourns the deaths of revered African American figures in the worlds of music, literature, art, and activism. In her verses, we hear the sounds of Max Roach "exploding in the universe," the "blue hallelujahs" of the Philadelphia Murals, and the voice of Odetta "thundering out of the earth." Sanchez sings the praises of contemporaries whose poetic alchemy turns "words into gems": Maya Angelou, Richard Long, and Toni Morrison. And she pays homage to peace workers and civil rights activists from Rosa Parks and Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm to Brother Damu, founder of the National Black Environmental Justice Network. Often arranged in strings of twelve or more, the haiku flow one into the other in a steady song of commemoration. Sometimes deceptively simple, her lyrics hold a very powerful load of emotion and meaning. There are intimate verses here for family and friends, verses of profound loss and silence, of courage and resilience. Sanchez is innovative, composing haiku in new forms, including a section of moving two-line poems that reflect on the long wake of 9/11. In a brief and personal opening essay, the poet explains her deep appreciation for haiku as an art form. With its touching portraits and by turns uplifting and heartbreaking lyrics, Morning Haiku contains some of Sanchez's freshest, most poignant work.

By all accounts, Janet Neal was living the ideal life or at least she thought she was. The reality was quite another story: She was exhausted, unhappy, and unsure of just who the real Janet truly was. Life and a liberal application of hair gel to her face helped to get her attention, forcing her to move from her reliance on her faulty thinking to listening to the wisdom of her soul. This collection of insightful and amusing vignettes chronicle a superwomans journey fueled by her belief that she had to do everything and do it perfectly to her awareness that there was actually nothing she had to do; she already had it all. A must read for anyone who has thought Is this all? or What now? Janet gives life a new perspective - indeed a soul perspective! Nancy Aronie, Author: Writing from the Heart Soul in Control is an engaging and entertaining reminder to stay focused on whats important. Janets practical advice is sound medicine for a frenetic world overtaken by distraction and a false sense of productivity. Her wisdom offers hope in our professional and personal lives. Kenny Moore, Author: The CEO and the Monk: One Companys Journey to Profit and Purpose In her wonderful guide to living a deeper, richer life, Janet Neal takes us by the hand and shows us step by step how to give up the need to manage our life perfectly and find that serene, sunlit place where our soul is in control. With stories and lessons straight from the heart that we can all embrace, Janet is a wise and witty superwoman-turned-sage. If you want more joy, fulfillment, and fun in your life, then read Soul In Control -- youll be glad you did! Karin Abarbanel, Co-author: Birthing the Elephant: The Womans Go-For-It! Guide to Overcoming the Big Challenges of Launching a Business

In the past hundred years, haiku has gone far beyond its Japanese origins to become a worldwide phenomenon—with the classic poetic form growing and evolving as it has adapted to the needs of the whole range of languages and cultures that have embraced it. This proliferation of the joy of haiku is cause for celebration—but it can also compel us to go back to the beginning: to look at haiku’s development during the centuries before it was known outside Japan. This in-depth study of haiku history begins with the great early masters of the form—like Basho, Buson, and Issa—and goes all the way to twentieth-century greats, like Santoka. It also focuses on an important aspect of traditional haiku that is less known in the West: haiku art. All the great haiku masters created paintings (called haiga) or calligraphy in connection with their poems, and the words and images were intended to be enjoyed together, enhancing each other, and each adding its own dimension to the reader’s and viewer’s understanding. Here one of the leading haiku scholars of the West takes us on a tour of haiku poetry’s evolution, providing along the way a wealth of examples of the poetry and the art inspired by it.

A discussion of one of the great interpreters of Japan. The Japanese have always revered Hearn and this book shows the West why he is revered. Experts look at his writings and discuss his integrity as an observer and interpreter of Japan and the Japanese.

National Geographic presents a comprehensive guide to fighting mental decline. With cutting-edge neuroscience, information about Alzheimer's, fascinating case studies, and tips to fight brain aging symptoms such as slower mental acuity and "senior moments," this smart, engaging guide will help keep your memory sharp and your mind active. Fun, age-defying exercises--from body stretches to word games to foods that help you think--help the brain perform at its best, just like exercising does for other parts of the body. Leading memory loss expert Cynthia R. Green, PhD, and eminent science writer Michael Sweeney have created a book both informational and practical that gives readers everything they need to know about the care and feeding of one of the body's most important organs: the brain.

Calligraphy is an ancient art that doesn’t grow old. Known in Japanese as Shodo (書道) the Way of the Brush, a proverb has it that Shodo promotes perpetual youth and longevity. Research has shown that indeed, the practice of Shodo improves posture, regulates breathing, and even calms the heartbeat, all of which indeed has been shown to extend life. In China, it was considered one of the Five Excellences for cultivating character: Calligraphy, Poetry, Painting, Tai Chi, and Tea. Song of the Brush, Dance of the Ink: Reclaiming the Five Treasures of Japanese Calligraphy brings this into a contemporary context. Calligraphy is crystalized time, and Song of the Brush, Dance of the Ink shows readers how to unlock its secrets by learning how to wield the brush with precision, how to read and write the various scripts used in Shodo, and how to use it as a discipline for self-mastery and self-expression. Because of the language barrier, it has long been a mystery to the Western mind. Song of the Brush, Dance of the Ink gives readers unprecedented access to the wonderful world of Calligraphy, removing the barriers of language, geography, time, and accessibility. William Reed is a leading expert on Japanese Calligraphy and Japanese Culture, who is actively engaged in teaching Calligraphy in Japan as well as to an international audience. Song of the Brush, Dance of the Ink enables people to appreciate the philosophical dimensions of Calligraphy, enjoy it for interior display or as digital art, and as a path to self-discovery and self-mastery through master tips on practice.

American Haiku: New Readings explores the history and development of haiku by American writers, examining individual writers. In the late nineteenth century, Japanese poetry influenced through translation the French Symbolist poets, from whom British and American Imagist poets, Amy Lowell, Ezra Pound, T. E. Hulme, and John Gould Fletcher, received stimulus. Since the first English-language hokku (haiku) written by Yone Noguchi in 1903, one of the Imagist poet Ezra Pound’s well-known haiku-like poem, “In A Station of the Metro,” published in 1913, is most influential on other Imagist and later American haiku poets. Since the end of World War II many Americans and Canadians tried their hands at writing haiku. Among them, Richard Wright wrote over four thousand haiku in the final eighteen months of his life in exile in France. His Haiku: This Other World, ed. Yoshinobu Hakutani and Robert L. Tener (1998), is a posthumous collection of 817 haiku Wright himself had selected. Jack Kerouac, a well-known American novelist like Richard Wright, also wrote numerous haiku. Kerouac’s Book of Haikus, ed. Regina Weinreich (Penguin, 2003), collects 667 haiku. In recent decades, many other American writers have written haiku: Lenard Moore, Sonia Sanchez, James A. Emanuel, Burnell Lippy, and Cid Corman. Sonia Sanchez has two collections of haiku: Like the Singing Coming off the Drums (Boston: Beacon Press, 1998) and Morning Haiku (Boston: Beacon Press, 2010). James A. Emanuel’s Jazz from the Haiku King (Broadside Press, 1999) is also a unique collection of haiku. Lenard Moore, author of his haiku collections The Open Eye (1985), has been writing and publishing haiku for over 20 years and became the first African American to be elected as President of the Haiku Society of America. Burnell Lippy’s haiku appears in the major American haiku journals, Where the River Goes: The Nature Tradition in English-Language Haiku (2013).Cid Corman is well-known not only as a haiku poet but a translator of Japanese ancient and modern haiku poets: Santoka, Walking into the Wind (Cadmus Editions, 1994).