My interest in reporting the progress of the book Taking Tanka Home has dwindled to the point of repeated proofings of the new edition. All boring stuff for other ears so I have been 'suffering along in silence' all by myself. Actually the work with Aya goes so well I haven't even had a chance to suffer. She has been so great! but we are still having problems with the program putting line spaces between the English and the kanji - boring I know!

Then, today I found this challenge at a river of stones and thought that would give me a new stream of ideas for this page. So on January 1 I plan to start the exercise. Join me if you will!

In one email download I got lovely photos from Heidi and a message from Aya saying she liked Werner's drawing the best. So that is settled! Oh, I just realized I need to send Aya a messge. More later!

As the text pages come together for the second edition of Taking Tanka Home, I am beginning to think of changing the cover also. I love Werner and I love his artwork but I am wondering if the abstract red drawing says, "Yosemite" at all. So I asked Aya what she thought, and asked Heidi if she had any photos I could use. Basically I am leaving the choice of covers up to the Universe. Whatever works will determine what it will become.
You can see the photo I have my eye on on Heidi's web page.

The book, Taking Tanka Home is on a strange journey to redemption. Originally, I put the collection together and sent the poems off to Heidi, my daughter, to see if we could do a book together with her photos of Yosemite and my poems. That did not happen.
Then when I need a series of poems to take back to Japan they seemed ideal. My original plan was to have all the poems translated into Japanese. Two different guys worked over 4 months and got 15 out of 70 tanka across the big pond of poetry. I was pressed up against the deadline of the trip and let the book go.
Then when Aya Yuhki showed me her copy with each poem already translated I was blown away and immediately said, "Yes, let us do a second edition." It is now done except the manuscript is waiting for her new preface.
Then this weekend I get a request from a guy asking for haiku to go with his photos of Yosemite. If I could talk him into putting the photos into TTH with tanka instead of haiku it would bring that original dream even closer to reality. Some days I feel 'things' are going too slow with the second edition, but then I feel that things are happening that simply need more time to manifest.

I think I mentioned that when I met Aya Yuhki, just two weeks ago, at the tea with The Tanka Journal staff in Tokyo, she had already translated most of the tanka in Taking Tanka Home in the copy I had sent to her.
That had been my dream: that all the poems could be carried back to Japan in Japanese. However, I had to be content with only 15 of the 60+ poems in translation.

But now, since Aya got over the cold she caught on that day, she has translated all the poems. Just today we cleared the clouds of ambiguity that still surrounded the last 5 of them. I plan to do a second edition of Taking Tanka Home with Aya as the sole translator and with her introduction. She seems to understand my work! - another reason to be very thankful!

This means that those of you with your present copies of the books may someday have a rare book. From my calculation, only 50 copies of the first edition were printed.

I am very excited to see my dream coming true! And all the thanks goes to Aya Yuhki! May her tribe increase!

I am beginning to work back through the poems and diaries I wrote while in Japan and really wanted to show this picture to you.

On Monday, September 27, the staff of The Tanka Journal had a tea for me at the Jurire Cafe in the Keio Plaza Hotel. Thanks to the waiter in the cafe who took this photo I can tell you more about these women.

Starting on the right is a dear woman with excellent language skills who is a tea ceremony master - Mahiko Kobayashi. She is such a beautiful gentle soul I am looking forward to correspondence with her so I can absorb some of her completely Japanese being.

Next to her is Ruri Hazama, who wrote Raffaello's Azure, a book of her tanka. Ruri was the time keeper for my talk and the discussion group afterward. It was such a comfort to have her in the front row and to see the encouragement she gave me with a smile every time I glanced in her direction.

Then me, already looking a bit tired and overwhelmed by so much talk and kindness!

The big surprise for me at this tea was Aya Yuhki, whose work had been so often in Lynx. She is the new editor for the Tanka Journal and when I was looking for a translator for Taking Tanka Home, I thought of her and then thought, "I cannot ask this woman to take on more work just as she is getting into her new job." Well surprise of surprise, Aya comes to the tea with a copy of Taking Tanka Home and she has already translated every poem in the book! Thinking of this today makes tears of gratitude come to my eyes! I am thinking of making a second edition of the book and using Aya's translations. Am eager to get to this job!

Next to Aya is Mariko Kitakubo. She had come to Gualala in April of 2009 for the Japanese Poetry Evening at Gualala Arts where she read her tanka in Japanese, and played the homon drum and Linda Galloway read the tanka in English. We had such a good time together at the dinner at St. Orres so it was really a joy to meet Mariko again. She turned out to be an excellent hostess and really made sure we enjoyed our stay in Japan. Thanks Mariko for the CD of your reading of your tanka - Messages!

Next to her is Mrs. Toyoko Aisawa, the founder of the Nihon Kajin Club, The Japan Tanka Poets' Society, who is a very interesting person. I wish I had had more time to talk to her! She had lived in Australia and gave me four of her books in English! A beautifully made book, A Garden of Verses of her tanka, A Blossom in Eternity, also her tanka, as well as Feminine Spirituals (which is right up my interest-alley) as well as Utopia which has her renga! She was the first poet I found who crossed over into other poetry genres. This is one forward thinking woman and it was so good to meet her!

Next is my daughter, B. Steiner, who accompanied me on the trip. She took excellent care of me and did all the little chores that saved me so much energy. And she made the trip a real joy.

On the day we left Tokyo there were heavy skies all morning. Just as the bus pulled away from the hotel it began to rain. By the time we got to the airport there was a deluge. Then just moments before boarding I looked out at the plane and saw this huge lovely pink cloud with the moon in it. It felt like a blessing and I think it was. Bambi and I had two seats beside an unoccupied seat so we could stretch out our legs and pile our stuff on it so it was handy. That made the flight home so much more pleasant.

It is good to be back!

My gift from Mount Fuji

Mariko Kitakubo took us to the Prince Hotel at Hakone. The day was mostly overcast, but that could not stop me from trying to photograph the charming tourist boats on the lake. All afternoon we kept looking in the direction that everyone said was where Mount Fuji was, but all we saw were white clouds. Then just at sunset (I was taking a nap) the phone rang. It was Mariko on the tramline calling to tell me the clouds had parted and one could see Fuji. I was so excited I forgot to take a photo, but Mariko did and even got someone at the desk to print photos.

When we arrived back in Tokyo the next day I downloaded my photos and found that though we could not see Mount Fuji in the afternoon the camera did!

During the discussion with Mr. Shino (r) and Mr Sakai, after the speech, when they held up my book. So mch to say, so many names of people I have met, but this computer is very tiring to type on and I still want to go to Hakone today. All is well and we are having too much fun!

I have seen the sun rise over Tokyo this day. It was such a joy to have the trip behind me, to know it went well and though we were very tired, we had landed in a beautiful place. It began with the kind reception of a woman representing the PEN Club who took great care in getting us the bus tickets and getting us to the right vehicle. It was already dark when we got out of the airport so the journey into Tokyo was only a series of names we knew only on maps. As we curved over skyways with whole cities shimmering below us like pools of light, we wondered where the people were. It was only after 90 minutes of big bus noises did we approach Shibuya train station and the strees filled with entertainment and crowds of people. All too soon we were away from that and at the Keio Hotel and being royally welcomed. We were escorted to a beautiful room on the 29th floor so that the city was spread below us like a carpet of lights.
We could barely eat our rice, soup (delicious!) and tea before we fell into bed; asleep before we knew it.
At three we both woke and decided it was better to get up and get unpacked. What a joy this hotel is. I have never had a room with so many amenities and well-thought out fulfillment of every need. Once passing the huge window we saw a lurid pink in the sky and the dawn followed.

after a long trip
with clean wet hair

watching sunrise
I face the east to see

back to California

Was awakened while it was still dark, not because I was too nervous to anymore, but because a beaufitul full moon was shining derectly in the bedroom. It is rare that we on the coast have a morning that is without clouds or fog. The moon was shining down on the water creating a silver path from me to Japan. Was given several
OOPS. WROTE A BUNCH THAT DISAPPEARED AND NOW IT IS TIME TO THE AIRPORT.
Our flight leaves at 1:30, not 11:30 but still there is much to do.

The suitcase is packed, but not closed. Piles os stuff seem very hopeful that they contain something useful. How to plan my needs of the future when I am so committed to letting happen what will, I am amazed that I am as quiet as I am! and very grateful that my body is allowing this trip.
The house is cleaner than I thought it would be. Somehow packing seemed to take longer and use up more energy than I had planned for the job.
When I was able to put away the last of the laundry and fold up the vacuum cleaner, I sat down to compile a booklet of my tanka as a small gift for Harue-san. I had made the pages from old sumi drawings and some leftover banana fiber covers. I found this poem I had forgotten about, but it seemed to fit today as if it was just written.

incoming waves
all of the beach days
rolled into one

absence is no longer

erasure but fulfilling

When I posted here yesterday I did not realize that Yom Kippur began at sunset or even the significance of the Jewish holy day. Last evening, while noodling around on the new netbook, gotten to take to Japan, I did a search of Yom Kippur and found out it is in celebration of atonement. That adds a new dimension to the picture and my poem of yesterday.
I want to work on making changes in the poem but this afternoon I will be attending the Memorial Service for Brian Dillman, the husband of Kathy - a member of our beading group. I am trusting that this actual experience, added to my feelings about the drawing, will allow something good to come through me.
Did get word by email that the copies of Taking Tanka Home I sent to two other persons have arrived.
I think an indication that the trip is getting closer is the fact that I had to get larger sheets of post'ems for my longer to-do lists.

Things are shaping up for the trip. The ticket arrived yesterday which opened up a great new door of reality and nervousness. As I get things attended to, packed and done, other jobs that I have pushed aside previously are now rearing their heads from the shoved aside chaos. This is a case in point.

Some months ago Bill Elmore, the artist of this charcoal drawing, brought it to me saying he had the feeling that the work needed words with it. Either an explanation of the worman' s grief or poem to round it out. He felt his lines and shapes were not saying enough. The picture has hung on my workroom wall for months and nothing has moved within me.

The other night I was watching The Answer Man and during one of the long pauses while the video stops to download another chunk because out internet connect wobbles and fades, some words began to come to me. I am not sure any of these have lasting value, but I got what I was given.

charcoal

forming her shape

of sadness

the accident

the guilt

~*~

a line

in charcoal

the loss

of a gift

the guilt

~*~

shadows

of charcoal

shape

the loss of a gift

an endless line

~*~

charcoal

beyound the line

of loss

the gift replaced

by silent space

Is this enough or do you need the story? Just a week before this woman was scheduled to model for the figure class, she let her boyfriend park his Harley in the living room. Her two-year old child tried to pull himself up to the bike and it tipped over crushing the child and killing it.

I am trying to keep my own ghostly travel fears at bay while focusing on this harsh reality.

All my working hours are going into the speech. It seems that every time I turn off the computer (to not have to listen to the hum of the fan) I get a new idea. I fire the computer back up and insert another minute into the talk. I hope the audience has comfortable chairs!
There is so much I have to say and yet there are things that I cannot say in a public speech. I am looking forward to quiet one-on-one talks to resolve some of these issues that fly around in my mind.
One of the copies of Taking Tanka Home that I sent out last week has arrived in Japan. I got an email stating just that and nothing more. No comment, no impression. Nothing for me to hang on to as I wonder how it will be received. I try to tell myself that each person will think of the book the way they think they are thought of which has little or nothing to do with me or this book. Still, a kind word would be helpful as I stave off a lung infection and downward drag of antibiotics.

The books arrived from Lulu right on time and beautifully packaged. Found a typo in one poem:

roots

of the fallen pine

move again

a deer comes into view

with a find rack of antlers

Thank goodness I was able to fix it before ordering the books to be sent to Japan. Steve Kott of Good Day Books in Tokyo is acting as a one-stop tanka shopping center. He agreed to let me ship my books to him so I do not need to carry them in my suitcase.

Yuki, a friend of B's in Moab, used to work for a travel office in Japan and is on the search for lodging in Nikko for us after the congress. It turns out that the weekend we want to be there, many Japanese schools will be making class trips. The one place I really wanted is completely booked at the moment. I trust that wherever we land it will be the right place for us.

The man with the white beard is Morgan Lambert. I was very surprised that he took a chance on reading a play that has so much mime in it, but he pulled it off by reading the staging parts.

Last night the Readers Theater, a group that meets monthly at Gualala Arts Center, read my play "Banana Skies." It is a one act ten-scene portrayal of Basho's famous travel diary Oku no Hosomichi - Back Roads to the Far North. For me it was such a thrill to hear the words in the voices of other people. How welcomed after hearing only myself reading it!

Morgan Lambert was the director and he had a system figured out so eveyone got a chance to read; even a visitor who jumped in when a regular reader failed to show up. I got hints for formatting corrections and even some grammar goofs that needed repair. Morgan was an English teacher!

But the very nicest part of the evening was the fellowship that formed as we lent our voices to this one manuscript. Because the roles changed scene by scene I could envision various incarnations of Basho and Sora. For moments these two men came alive for me in the sound of living voices. That was so rewarding!

The way that the story of Basho and Sora, on a journey, could pull together this group of individuals four hundred years later - with laughter and questions - so far from Japan was the miracle. I was very thankful to be a part of it. Thanks to everyone who came and made the evening so special.

as poets hew
earth-bound light
we clouds
making shapes of nothing
revealing more than we know

Well, at least Lulu.com is on time! They sent the books out on Wednesday by priority mail so that package should be showing up on my doorstep soon after the holiday.
B, my daughter who is going with me to Tokyo, has a friend Yuki who used to work for a Japanese travel agency. Finally we are getting somewhere with our plans to stay in a temple! Now to see if the one we really like is available. So that feels good. Things are coming together.

lidded eyes
the stove watches
as spaghetti boils
a roiling breeze uncovers
the windchimes of pan

Got a message from Steve Kott at Good Day Books in Tokyo that the box of books sent out on Friday had already arrived on his Wednesday. Such a surprise that they got there so quickly. So you Tokyoites can now thumb through my books before buying. Do check out the home page of AHApoetry.com where there is a link to Good Day Books with excellent guides on how to get there from wherever you are.

That the books arrived so quickly comforts me with the thought that I can get Taking Tanka Home copies there (perhaps) as easily. At this point the book is still deep in the innards of Lulu being corrected - or digested - or I think I had better leave this metaphor alone now.

Finished Lynx today also. So I am able to breath more deeply now.

Saw the first Monarch butterfly of our summer autumn.

crossing
the dry stubble field
the empitness
with butterflies ringing
hay harvested and stored

To my surprise the proof of Taking Tanka Home arrived by Fed Ex on Thursday afternoon. I would not have had to send poor Werner off to the post office the day before if I had known how they were sending the book. This meant that Friday morning was given to proofing and correcting a few minor space problems. The biggest change was on the cover. I felt the black font on the title was wrong, so I changed it to white. I feel it helps to pull together the white on the left and jumps out to the eye more than the black. It is amazing how one can visualize things, think about them, create them in a computer and yet when they manifest the message they carry can be very different.

Hoping this looks as good in the real as it does on the computer I went ahead and ordered the books. I just felt I could not give another ten days to a proof. More nail-biting.

Oh the two things I had worried about for this proofing came out okay. On the computer screen the ISBN barcode and some of the kanji looked a bit fuzzy but in the paper book they were fine. It was the things I thought were okay that hit me behind the knees. Life?

to wander

in a flowering meadow

no stem is bent

by the leisure of a mind

enjoying a photograph

I was so sure that the Taking Tanka Home proof from Lulu.com would be in the mailbox that I asked Werner to make a special trip to town to check. No happiness! Twenty-eight mile gamble that did not pay off.
To compensate I began to pack up the other books that I do have to send to Good Day Books in Tokyo. I am waiting on a call-back from the post office to learn their regs for shipping books. They seem to change each week.
In the meantime; waiting. . .

According to the folks at Lulu the book shipped out on Friday. As of mail delivery yesterday it had not arrived although I had paided for express shipment. To calm myself I repeat the manta, "You do not need to HAVE this book. If it gets done; it gets done. Whatever is to be will be." And yet I keep wondering where I went wrong to get myself into this time-bind. . .
Join me in feeding the fish above by placing your mouse in the pond (cooling thought), clicking to drop food, and watch the fish delight in their lunch. I wonder if one can over-feed virtual fish?

The manuscript and cover for Taking Tanka Home have been sent to Lulu and now I am biting my nails wondering what I forgot to do. Will the kanji be sharp enough? Will the barcode look better? Why can I not get a better image of it? Does it matter? Does the world need another book.
Last night Werner was telling me about an article in the Frankfurter newspaper saying that the Internet and desktop publishing are producing more books than there are readers! What a depressing thought! But it is one I have had. I think this is not the time to think about it!
Off to start writing book reviews for Lynx. My pay-back to our industry! At least I read the books others make. And write down my opinions. . .

I did it. I managed to manifest my worst fear: that I would put the wrong kanji on a translation. The fear has hung over my head the whole time and then today, after I had sent off the pdf for Robin to check, I found my goof. Thank goodness he had been too busy to even check his email so he never saw the error. Now I tremble to learn what else he finds!

I am still shaking from the shock. Now I am wondering what other disaster I have created. At this stage of proofing I often get the thought that I create books only to invent fields for errors and mirrors of my inadequacy. This is my least favorite part of doing a book! Like the woman in labor I swear I will never do this again!

As I tossed in bed, wide awake at 3:00, I began to despair that Robin would ever get the kanji versions of the translations to me. He is a very busy guy, in addition to taking care of his sister who is battling cancer he is working on several books at once. In the dark I imagined how I could redo the book so one would not miss the kanji - how I could continue without his help.

Then upon opening my email - there the kanji was! And he was doing far more work than I had asked for. He gave me various possible translations with the matching kanji. It was almost an embarrassment of riches!

The pages look so much more impressive and complete with the kanji on them. I am so thrilled and excited. My joy today is so much higher than my despair was deep!

today

standing on tip-toes

an act of love

above faith and forgiveness

just to think of you

It is strange how books take on a life of their own - even 'deciding' what will be in them or not. Today I tried to figure out how to add in the new poems and they simply did not fit. It was like working a puzzle in which half the pieces were cut from cardboard and the rest cut from wood.
Also, since the poems came so easily the other day I felt I could pick up where I left off and continue. I could not sleep so decided to get up to get the rest of the poems I felt hovering over me. Nada! Nix! The well was dry.
Now I am feeling sleep-deprived with no joy in new work. I am a grumpy lump in a gray sweat suit. Need to get off on a walk to refill my tanks with tanka.

tearful lips

the bruised color of questions

in your eyes

where do the days lead to

when understanding is gone

More misunderstandings! Yesterday when I was considering adding some of the new poems to the book, Taking Tanka Home, I was looking at the sheets of the print-out. Usually Werner looks at my new stuff and makes with an 'x' those he finds good. On these sheets there were only a couple of marks.
My heart sank and I thought, "Oh dear, the new stuff is no good at all. If he only found three worthy of his marks."
This morning at breakfast I apologized to him for the poor quality of the last batch of tanka and he was astounded. Evidently he found all of them good enough to publish and the 'x' only indicated his choice when I had written variations. Whew! What a relief! Suddenly the sun shines and I have gobs of energy.
However, instead of working on the book I worked on the 'handout' of tanka books and websites I want to have for the speech. I needed a morning of routine organizing book titles to calm my jaded nerves.

three roads
one a blood we share
one a river

when our canoe tips over

we follow our breath

Robin D. Gill, the guy who makes those 10-pound books of translation, is writing the Introduction to the book. Yesterday he sent it by attachment. It was already formatted so I tried and tried to get it back to neutral. When nothing worked I gave up and simple pasted it into the book. I made some minor cosmetic corrections and was feeling that I could live with the strange style. Accidentally, but nothing is truly accidental, I happened to scroll to another page in the book and to my horror all the formatting in the whole book gone wonky.

At some level I knew what to do, yet suddenly seeing all that work jump into new places on the page nearly undid me. I suddenly knew what people meant when they said something was 'possessed.' All I had to do was to close the file without saving it, but the shock is still with me.

Then while polishing the poems from a couple of days ago I found this:

learning

of our unreadable start

below the breast

you and I in world

barely parallel

Whatever was I thinking of when I wrote that three days ago? Is madness catching?

Welcome to my new blog.

As part of my activities surrounding the trip to Japan and the speech I will be giving at the International Annual PEN Club Congress in the Keio Plaza Hotel on Tuesday, September, 28, 2010, I wanted to chart my path.

I plan for this to be partly journal, as well as report, of these very special days.

Yesterday started off well with many new tanka which I hope will be the backbone of these blogs.

poet of lines

pencil and wordless

drawn

in circles and spirals

your story of space

This one I put on the copyright page of the book I am making to take with me, Taking Tanka Home, under the line about the cover drawing being one made by Werner.