NEW HOPE INTERNATIONAL REVIEW

An independent small press poetry review

NHI independent review
ROSE HAIKU FOR FLOWER LOVERS AND GARDENERS
edited by Angela Leuck
Redlader Publishing
Price-Patterson Ltd
Montreal
Canada
ISBN 1 896881 52 1
$9.95 [$8.95 USA]
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This page last updated: 10th December 2007. 		ROSE HAIKU FOR FLOWER LOVERS AND GARDENERS

A hundred or so haiku all about roses. One might think you'd have to be potty about haiku or roses to wade your way through such a collection. Well you certainly would have to quite like one or the other or better still both not to be overwhelmed.

That said, taken in small bunches, this book is really rather fragrant. Quite a few of the blooms drooped and some seemed staid. For me the best half dozen were the opening

	  rose garden
	one deep breath
	  after another
by Anne L.B. Davidson which sets us up nicely, and Gerald England's
	outside my window
	  the unpruned rosebush
	drips
a really sharp image that includes action. More subtle is Ernest J. Berry's
	autumn wind
	  the peace rose
	blows away
and Kay Grimnes also shows us the weather in
	rosehips
	the slow melt of ice
	from the feeder
Roberta Beary has a variant of the above three with
	quiet rain
	...the deeper quiet
	of uncut roses
and finally this from Kirsty Karkow
	just when
	I grow used to clouds
	the pink rose opens
On another day I might have made a different selection, but the joy of books like this is that you have enough here to mix and match to suit your mood.

reviewer: Angus McFadden.