Water on the Moon was shortlisted, out of over 80 books, for the inaugural Touchstone Distinguished Book Awards, by The Haiku Foundation.
Now made available as a PDF:
http://www.thehaikufoundation.org/omeka/files/original/17f28b85755dc882ee45d2fd4eb128c9.pdf
This is an iconic collection of haiku by one of the world's finest practitioners of the genre.
 |
| Helen Buckingham |
There may be a few print copies left.
Contact email:
"Helen Buckingham" <helenb47@googlemail.com>
water on the moon
by Helen Buckingham
original plus
Maryport, Cumbria, UK 2010
ISBN 978-0-9562433-5-5
£8.00 inclusive of U.K. post and package
Now made available as a PDF:
http://www.thehaikufoundation.org/omeka/files/original/17f28b85755dc882ee45d2fd4eb128c9.pdf
INTRODUCTION IN THE BOOK
by Alan Summers
There
is so much haiku written that sometimes we can lose our own ‘voice’ as a
reader: Helen Buckingham is one of those writers who allows us to regain it.
Good
haiku is a little like alchemy, not so much as to turn lead into gold, but to highlight
how mundane everyday objects, accidents and incidents enrich our lives without
us even realising it. Sometimes we
just need a small kick to remind us, and a haiku poem seems ideally suited to
do this, and to show how those small moments are pure gold.
The
trick is not to think that lead needs to be turned to gold, it’s the art of the
deft touch, the fingernail to scrape off the slight oxidation, when we neglect
the quiet moments in our busy lives for the big brash times that quickly fade
over time.
Join
Helen and her book as she carries off an overall tone and mood, albeit made of
many voices. This isn’t easy
without setting off a cacophony, and clamour, of alarms as if a great number of
emergency vehicles were trapped in a traffic jam.
There
are subtle tonal changes in this book moving from the daily process of living
through a lifelong illness; the beautifully observed close relationship with
her father; the appreciation of a child’s wonder of a world still very new to
them; the bittersweet humour
contained in both haiku and senryu; the stars and sky at night; allusion and
surreal images; and the seasons.
How is
all this possible?
third
night grounded…
tracing
ursa minor
in
the woodchip
Mood
is balanced with technique, getting the experience either directly or
elliptically caught in amber:
amber
light
wrapped
flowers
on
the verge
Accidents
come in all shapes and sizes, and however painful, they need to be addressed.
nil
by mouth—
peeling
and dicing
the
moon
On
reading Helen’s collection I absorb a sustained collective of poems, moving
from bluntly honest poems about illness to the quirky sidesteps in life, from
the one liner:
blood
room counting the odd tiles
…to the
Alice in Wonderlandness…
taxi
stand
the
man in a rabbit suit
fumbles
for his watch
Honesty
is a potent instrument and we have plenty of that: a life is brought to the
microscope, with humour never far away, never a stranger to pain. We all like to think we have a keen
sense of humour, and a strong streak of honesty; and Helen’s collection is like
a litmus test to test our own pH.
What
I appreciated within the collection is the musicality within the brevity of
words and the starkness of imagery, with the gentle touches of techinque:
alliteration, dissonance, assonance and consonance, and always light and
shade. Alongside the usual methods
of juxtaposition; zooming in and out of things observed, poems are possible
hinted at metaphors like the “man” in a rabbit suit fumbling for a pocket
watch; do we spend our life like that?
I’ve
mentioned humour in haiku and humour in senryu, here we have two quite
different takes:
after
sex
he
googles
himself
and the
off centre poignancy of
flagging
mistletoe
a
fine amontillado
stain
on the carpet
Haiku
poems need to have a fulcrum to keep from becoming merely a deflated gag with a
superficial punchline that never goes beyond a cheap laugh. The humour in Helen’s haiku (and
senryu) is definitely expensive, or rather, at the expense of the writer, never
the reader or other intended target.
How
is a series of concentrated writings that are haiku, sustained within a
framework of craft, integrity, light and shade, given a content as deep as a
longer poem?
How
to do that with the perhaps unbearable brevity that would cause pain to most
poets, kept throughout; how is that light n’ tight magic that haiku is famous
for, brought alive?
Well, if
you can fight off the foxes…
foxes
fight
over
the
last of my dream
and join
Helen early in the day…
breakfast
shift
...sharing
the last
of
the stars
…perhaps
you too will share the last of the stars.
Alan
Summers
Director/writer of With
Words
QUOTES
"I have long been a fan ... the haiku and senryu experiences in this collection run the gamut from soft and beautiful to humorous, some with an acerbic wit ... this is an ample serving of enjoyable poems by a strong, original writer."
"Helen Buckingham is one of those great haiku/senryu writers whose work invites us to revisit it again and again. I highly recommend Water on the Moon; it should be in every poet's library."
Pamela A. Babusci (USA), internationally award winning haiku/tanka & haiga artist; and logo artist for Haiku North America conferences New York City 2003 and Winston-Salem, NC USA 2007.
"...an important part of the process of collecting together...(is)...that some should just mark time, the meaning loose, less focussed, waiting, or in preparation, for the next really startling event. One could call this a process of constriction and dilation–a tying together and a loosening up. I have to say that reading Helen's book had me clicking files to check my own preparation of a collection of 'my' haiku...this is an excellent collection." Colin Blundell, editor of Blithe Spirit, journal of the British Haiku Society. Review published June 2010.
"Like the best wordsmiths, Helen Buckingham possesses what seems to be a wholly natural talent for translating the modern world and contemporary living, often in their minutest detail into exquisite poetry. What's most striking about Helen Buckingham's poetry is its immediacy and proximity - each breath of poetry seems to exist within the moment of its making."
Liam Wilkinson, (Yorkshire, England) founding editor and curator of the 3Lights Gallery of Haiku and Tanka.
Managing Editor of international Notes from the Gean haiku online magazine and The Gean Tree Press.
"...water on the moon is a major collection by Buckingham which contains 250 poems over 84 pages set out in four sections which correlate to the seasons. The back page blurb contains endorsements by such haiku luminaries as Liam Wilkinson, Pamela A. Babusci and Paul MacNeil and a wonderfully comprehensive introduction by Alan Summers.
Helen's work has previously been published in A New Resonance 5: Emerging Voices in English-Language Haiku, Redmoon Press USA 2007, ISBN: 978-1-893959-65-1, edited by Jim Kacian and Dee Evetts:
.
The work of seventeen poets from seven different countries (Austria, Bulgaria, Japan, New Zealand, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States) comprises the latest volume of up-and-coming poets working in the haiku form in English. This biennial project has now helped launch 85 poets into the haiku community, and each volume has received critical acclaim.
Alas, I've noted A New Resonance 5: Emerging Voices in English-Language Haiku is now SOLD OUT.
See also:
Armadillo Basket (2011)
