NEW HOPE INTERNATIONAL REVIEW

An independent small press poetry review

NHI independent review
RATTLE OF BAMBOO
edited by Linda Galloway
The Southern California Haiku Study Group
c/o Pacific Asia Museum
46 North Los Robles Avenue
Pasadena
CA
USA
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This page last updated: 10th December 2007. 		RATTLE OF BAMBOO

RATTLE OF BAMBOO is an anthology of haiku and senryu from the Southern Californian Haiku Study Group. The title is taken from Margaret Hehman-Smith's poem,

	rattle of bamboo
	an elderly woman walks
	slowly in the wind
The book has an elegantly designed cover: thick white card with black sumi-e cover art of bamboo by Ann Bendixen. The poems are laid out with a minimum of two to a page, while some pages contain as many as six poems.

Many poems in the collection have a clarity of observation and an acute sensitivity which we come to expect of good haiku. Readers of the collection will find themselves captivated by many of the poems, their observations and their touching on the vagaries of life, such as we see in Jerry Ball's poem:

	autumn journey
	my wife on the phone
	with baseball scores
A love and kinship with nature is often expressed, as in Thomas Conroy's
	hawk shadow
	over the field — stillness
and Billie Dee's
	sultry night
	palm rats
	rattle the fronds
It is in the wide expanse of nature that many of the poets find their inspiration. For example, gK's
	first sun in days
	bees bees bees
	in the rosemary
but human nature is very often bound up with natural scenery, as in Terry Johnson's
	a small child — dandelion "fairies"
	scatter in the wind
and Deborah P. Kolodji's
	the itch
	in your absence
	poison oak
We sense the delight of coming spring in Michael McClintock's
	not green itself
	but a hint of it —
	the slanting spring light
Nature not only forms the backdrop for the expression of love, loss, pain, disease, childhood or aging, but also offers the poet the means to find comfort in the knowledge that, no matter the hardships of life, nature is on-going. We feel the sense of loss and anguish in Naia's
	divorce papers signed . . .
	the sound
	of wind-driven rain
and we see love in Victor Ortiz's
	first snow . . .
	he wraps the urn
	with her favourite shawl
Throughout this anthology readers will find themselves delighting in the unusual — Carolyn Thomas'
	at the other end
	of the cell phone
	beach gulls
the sensual — Ortiz's
	summer picnic
	her breasts
	sway above me
and the magical — Wendy Wright's
	boardwalk mural:
	a ship reflected in the eye
	of the whale
The human and the non-human, the personal and the physical, the local and the global — the variations can be multiplied endlessly in these simple poems, but the principle informs them all — these poets write to look both ways, to hold things together and to give each word its proper weight.

The anthology ends with THE LAST WORD; REFLECTIONS OF A DOJIN EMERITUS by Jerry Ball, Founder of SCHSG. Six pages are devoted to "a memoir", in which Ball explains how the haiku group was formed. The collection also notes the death in 2006 of long time editor of HAIKU HEADLINES, David Priebe. David was a wonderful friend in the spirit of haiku and not only gave his time and guidance, published one's poems, but sent an annual calendar to each member. David will be regarded with fondness and appreciation by his friends and contributors to the magazine. Tony Bilicke's poem in memory of his friend David, reads:

	cool hotel lobby —
	I watch the traffic passing 
	and remember you

reviewer: Patricia Prime.