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Philomene
Kocher’s newest collection still: new, selected & collaborative
haiku is a triumph that is not to be missed. The book’s interior,
New & Selected Haiku, contains individual haiku under sections titled:
Blizzard, Dandelions, Fireflies, and Harvest. These intriguing descriptors
invite the reader to stay and savour each season’s haiku offerings. Septenga
with poet Marco Fraticelli and one haiku travelogue make for a delightful
bonus. Highly Recommended.
~ Roberta Beary, author of The Unworn Necklace
If you like poetry that at once makes you think, challenges you to
look at the world from a little bit different perspective, yet leaves
you truly satisfied, this collection is for you.
~ Ignatius Fay, editor of Tandem: The Rengay Journal
Throughout these pages, the poems show a poet fully aware of what it
takes to make indelible haiku. She draws the reader into magical moments
through individual haiku and in sequences written with Marco Fraticelli.
I’m sure the reader will agree, this is a book to learn from, to teach
from and ultimately enjoy, reading after reading.
~ LeRoy Gorman, past editor, Haiku Canada Review
Breath by exquisite breath, these poems are an ecology of wonder that
ground us in our natural home. Each haiku is a jewel of contemplation
playing our senses. This is a collection meant for meditation and joy.
~ Rebecca Luce-Kapler, author of The Negation of Chronology: Imagining
Geraldine Moodie
Philomene Kocher lives in Kingston, Ontario. She grew up on a farm near
Hepworth, Ontario (pop. 400) which is now part of the town of South Bruce
Peninsula. Her connection to nature from those early years continues to
deepen and inspire. Her poetry has appeared in publications in Canada,
the United States, and Japan. Her first collection of haiku, tanka, and
haibun was published in 2014 by catkin press: Singing in the Silo.
For 12 years she served on the executive of Haiku Canada. She enjoys sharing
haiku in the community: as part of a theatre production, on a neighbourhood
sidewalk chalkboard, and in a local tea store. After volunteering to share
haiku in a spiritual care program for persons with dementia (Soul Sessions)
at a long-term care facility, she completed graduate studies exploring
haiku as a way of connection. She has also facilitated many workshops,
believing haiku fosters the ability to find beauty in the ordinary.
Marco Fraticelli was born in Montreal in 1945. In his early years as
a poet, he decided to study and write haiku to sharpen his skills as a
lyric poet. Forty years later, he is still writing haiku. For much of
that time, he served on the executive of Haiku Canada, and has edited
numerous haiku anthologies. His poetry has won prizes in Canada, the United
States, and Japan. His most recent books consist of haibun – a poetic
form that combines story with haiku. Drifting (2013) was inspired
by the found diaries of a woman who lived in the early 1900s in the Eastern
Townships of Quebec, and excerpts from her diaries are matched with Marco’s
haiku. A Thousand Years (2018) unites imagined letters written
by Marco with haiku by an 18th century Japanese woman haiku master, Chiyo-ni.
He is currently working on his third collection of haibun, as well as
navigating the translation into French of his previous books of haibun
along with selected haiku.
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