Stages and Views (REFLECTIONS)

Literature & Fiction

Harter, Penny

Poetry

Katydid Books

The Haiku Handbook is the first book to give readers everything they need to begin appreciating, writing, or teaching haiku. In this groundbreaking and now-classic volume, the authors present haiku poets writing in English, Spanish, French, German, and five other languages on an equal footing with Japanese poets. Not only are the four great Japanese masters of the haiku represented (Basho, Buson, Issa, and Shiki) but also major Western authors not commonly known to have written poetry in this form, including Gary Snyder, Jack Kerouac and Richard Wright. With a new foreword by poet, translator, and author Jane Reichhold (Basho: The Complete Haiku), this anniversary edition presents a concise history of the Japanese haiku, including the dynamic changes throughout the twentieth century as this beloved poetry form has been adapted to modern and urban settings. Full chapters are offered on form, the seasons in haiku, and haiku craft, plus background on the Japanese poetic tradition and the effect of translation on our understanding of haiku. Other unique features are chapters on teaching and sharing haiku, with lesson plans for both elementary and secondary school use; a seasonal word index of poetic words; a comprehensive glossary; and a list of enduring classic resources for further exploration. By any standard, The Haiku Handbook is the defining volume in the genre.

The Haiku Handbook #25th Anniversary Edition: How to Write, Teach, and Appreciate Haiku

Higginson, William J.

History & Criticism

Kodansha International

This beautiful collection of haibun has a purity stemming from the honesty of its recollection and the elegance of its form. Reading it, I entered into a world of hawks and feathers, of deer and turkeys, of Poppy's tears, of spouses lost, of love of family and friends, of gratitude for being a poet and love of the natural world. I emerged from this world with a feeling of privileged access into a great and positive spirit recording her shares of sorrow, loss, illness, the turbulence of years, encouraged by the poet to share her resolve to love the broken world and to praise the light. -Neil Creighton, author of Morteza Penny Harter's Keeping Time: Haibun for the Journey is an exceptional work. Haiku-woven tales of love, loss, hope and redemption are set forth in a poignant three-part journey of discovery. Although every haibun is remarkable in its own way, I was swept away by the beauty of these three titles: "Keep," " Kept," "Keeping." And there is a not-to-be missed bonus at the end, a treasure trove titled "Tips for Writing Haibun." Keeping Time: Haibun for the Journey is destined to lead the canon of outstanding haibun collections. -Roberta Beary, author of The Unworn Necklace In Keeping Time, poet Penny Harter, takes her readers on a journey through the labyrinth of human existence. Each poem lingers in the liminal spaces between dream and memory, love and loss, joy and heartache. Whether it be antique store relics, the raised blue veins of aging hands, or the melting ice of an ancient glacier, Harter uses personal yet relatable imagery to thoughtfully ponder the things that measure, hold, and release time. Her poetry speaks to the resilient, transformative nature of the human spirit and the interconnectedness of all things. In a world that sometimes seems lost and struggling, her message is one of hope and reassurance the journey is our destination . . . . -Terri L. French, author of Fully Human; co-editor, contemporary haibun online

Keeping Time: Haibun for the Journey

Kelsay Books

We stand on the turtle's back and ask for the wind. We fly through the turtle's mind and drink the sky. We walk through the turtle's home and know we are alive with others who are alive. Something like water, something like blood flows through all of us as the sun lifts up its great eye each morning. We do not move through this world alone. Penny Harter's poems mingle patient alertness with animal choirs, reading prophecy in shells, bones, fallen leaves. "Penny Harter speaks with the wisdom of her kinship to the greater biotic community. Her meld of intuition, intelligence, talent and command has resulted in an exceptional and complete collection of poems that reflects great reverence for the spirit of Nature while offering glimpses of the frightening hubris that characterizes our own species. This elegant volume is very important both poetically and philosophically."--Jack Loeffler

Turtle Blessing: Poems

La Alameda Press

Buried in the Sky

Contemporary

LA Alameda Pr

Lizard Light celebrates our sacred physical connection to the planet, and offers us a path not of ownership, but kinship, as part of the breathing world of ravens, rocks and constellations.

Lizard Light: Poems from the Earth

Sherman Asher Publishing

Penny Harter's poems bind up bristle and bone, weed and seed, salt and sand together in a tender alchemy. These poems beckon to the broken open heart. Stop by for a visit. Learn the names of honey, the bitter and the sweet. The reader lingers, listening to this prayer that we / may all practice it together.Kim Langley, Author of Send My Roots Rain: A Companion on the Grief JourneyThe poems in Penny Harter's enviable body of work bear a striking resemblance to prayer, coming as they do from a place of stillness and deep intention. A Prayer the Body Makes, however, is her most accomplished, most flawlessly constructed book yet, inviting us to pay closer attention to the world around us and the many worlds held within us. In Penny Harter's hands, everything comes alive-from a kitchen that breathes as if sea-wind / has entered, to the farmhouse of her dreams, to her long-lost father singing again with her in their old Chrysler sedan as he tosses cigarettes out the window like "dying stars" whose light will never entirely go out. Read this book as you would a devotional text to remind yourself each day just how much there still is to love in this world.James Crews, Editor of ?Healing the Divide: Poems of Kindness and ConnectionReading A Prayer the Body Makes, I think of what it means when we say we are moved by art-how at the beginning of an encounter we are in one place, and at the end, another. Penny Harter's poems, one by one, exemplify that movement from quotidian to transcendent to sublime. Harter's poems are equally at home in lush landscapes and hospital rooms, beginning with physical detail and ending with a glimpse of eternity, as in "On Pike's Peak I Eat Donuts," You've done it, girl You've done it, / climbed above the tree line, and come back. Donna Hilbert, Gravity: New & Selected Poems

A Prayer the Body Makes

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Books by Harter, Penny