Book News Item: A New
International Haiku Anthology
Susumu Takiguch
HAIKU
-- the leaves are back on the tree
Zoe Savina of Greece has just produced an international
haiku anthology of poets/poems of her personal selection. A large volume of 467
pages, the anthology, called HAIKU with a subtitle of the leaves are back on
the tree, offers ten haiku each of 186 haijin from 50 countries with Greek
translations. Though by no means comprehensive or following some specific
editorial formula or focus, the book gives a kind of "panoramic" view
of different haiku poems written by different poets living in different parts of
the world, which is an interesting contrast to the fact that both the poets and
their poems are Zoe's personal choice.
It is also refreshing to see an international anthology
of this size and variety having been created outside of North America from which
big volumes normally emanate. It is not surprising that Greece has the greatest
number of poets entered, but it is a bit surprising that America is represented
by an amazingly small number of poets.
This is only a news item to let you know of this new
publication but WHC will review it properly in due course. By way of paying
tribute and congratulations, some of Zoe's own haiku are shown below, as it is
not possible to show 1860 poems in the book.
HAIKU -- the leaves are back on the tree
International Anthology, editing, general direction and prologue by Zoe Savina,
foreword by Sono Uchida, Athens, 2002
thickets or rosebushes
and...we recognize
friends and enemies
our old table
remembered its past
and blossomed...
Hiroshima
as if in embrace
in Hiroshima's lake
the moon is dying
Zoe Savina
...a welcome
addition to world haiku.
