By Margaret Chula
Cover Photo by John Einarsen
52 pages, 5 x 8, perfect bound — $15
Published by Alba Press, UK
One Leaf Detaches features haiku that Margaret Chula composed on a return trip to Kyoto, where she lived from 1980-1992. Arriving in autumn, she spent a month visiting her favorite temples and gardens, such as Ryoan-ji, Katsura Imperial Villa and Daitoku-ji, as well as making a pilgrimage to Buson’s hut and Murasaki Shikibu’s grave. Like her previous award-winning collections, One Leaf Detaches celebrates nature and our place in it.
sudden gust
the sway of bamboo
one leaf detaches
of red in the leaves
evening crickets
the unwavering back
of the Zen master
all my regrets
left in the forest
hunter’s moon
and the golden carp
time passes
into the rice stubble
a sickle moon
shakes rain from his wings
then passes through it
Judge, Ito-en Haiku Grand Prize Contest
(English Division)
A new collection of poems by Margaret Chula is always an event—an invitation to calm oneself and get serious about haiku. More than most of us writing haiku in English, she imbues her work with a sense of continuity with the deeper roots of the genre. The articulated silence following each haiku is an indication of her confidence as a writer and her accomplishments as a listener.
The Heron’s Nest