NEW HOPE INTERNATIONAL REVIEW

An independent small press poetry review

NHI independent review
PETER YOVU: TURN TO THE EARTH
Saki Press
1021 W Gregory St
Normal
IL 61761
USA
ISBN 1 893823 16 4
$5

www
NHI review home page
FAQ page
Notes for Publishers

book reviews
anthologies
magazines
other media

Web design by Gerald England
This page last updated: 13th October 2008.
PETER YOVU: TURN TO THE EARTH

TURN TO THE EARTH is a beautifully produced chapbook of haiku and haiku-like poems with some lovely black and white drawings by Earnest O Brown. Peter Yovu writes a wonderful introduction to the publication:

Haiku poets, I like to think, take on an incalculably important and difficult task: to be lovingly vigilant over small things and subtle connections; over what is fleeting, easily trodden on, ignored or missed completely. Intuitively, unreasonably, they know that such attention allows the otherwise hidden world to bloom, that human perception without such devotion, would be in danger of withering...
For me this describes the essence of haiku, though for me not all the haiku here capture that elusive 'haiku moment' of significance in the very small. Though to be fair, one writer's haiku moment may well be one reader's inconsequential observation and vice versa. Besides, part of the appreciation of haiku is the learning to notice and appreciate 'that which is fleeting (or) easily trodden on...' for itself and not just for any greater significance. There are too several fine haiku here, for example:
	coming out of the woods — 
	the sound of crickets
	the empty sky
which perfectly encapsulates the atmosphere of the moment, or the following, which offers a fitting epitaph for an entertainer:
	still spinning —
	the stars and planets above
	the jugglers grave.
This is a pleasing introduction to Peter Yovu's work and the small size of the publication means that it can slip into a pocket so the reader may never be without a haiku to meditate on.

reviewer: Juliet Wilson