Frogpond 34.3 • Autumn 2011 (pdf) - Haiku Society of America

Reviewed
Nigel Jenkins, Ken Jones, Lynne Rees (eds.). Another
Country: Haiku Poetry from Wales. Llandysul, Ceredigion:
Gomer Press, 2011, 176 pp., perfect softbound, 5 x 7. ISBN
978-1-84851-306-8, £9.99, .
By Michael W. Thomas, Stourport-on-Severn, England.
“Land of my fathers,” Dylan Thomas once said, “and my fathers
can keep it.” As so often, he was twirling his cape at the
gallery (and, in fairness, he was aware of such showboating:
on another occasion, at a party, he observed with sonorous selfmockery,
“Somebody’s boring me—I think it’s me”). If Thomas
had really meant to disown the land of his fathers, he would
arguably have had to estrange himself from the depths and
richness of Wales’ poetic heritage. But of course he couldn’t.
Wales has nurtured poetic forms aplenty and the poets to go
with them: native writers like a brace of Thomases, including
Dylan and R.S.; semi-connected blow-ins like Hopkins; first
cousins like Robert Graves; and, sporting guitars rather than
Eisteddfod staffs, the likes of Manic Street Preachers and Super
Furry Animals. It has also welcomed in other forms, and
Another Country illustrates the strength and warmth of that
welcome, making it a notable addition to the Gomer catalogue.
Variety is the keyword here, in terms of form no less than theme.
So there are standard haiku, tanka, haibun and somonka, all
invitingly described in a prefatory note by the editors, and a
range of subjects to put them through their paces, among them
“Age and Youth,” “Exits and Entrances” and appropriately,
“Shorelines,” since Wales has its fair, often beautiful share
of those. Jenkins, Jones and Rees are noted promoters of the
haiku in Wales, and their own work justifies such status. Here,
for example, is Jenkins capturing a moment at which, it might
be thought, words would fail:
she introduces
her baby to its shadow:
he waves, it waves back
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