A Long Rainy Season: Haiku and Tanka

by Leza Lowitz (Editor), Miyuki Aoyana (Editor), Robert Kushner (Illustrations)

Winner of the 1995 Benjamin Franklin Award, this is a landmark anthology of traditional short verse. In haiku and tanka fifteen Japanese women poets reveal universal female themes through the lens of a challenging spiritual and physical Japanese environment.

Genres: Poetry, Japanese Literature

198 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 1994

About the author

I'm a California girl living in Tokyo, where I write and run a yoga studio. For over two decades, I've been charting my quest in twenty books in many genres. I hope I'm just getting started.

I’m interested in ideas of identity and history. How is culture shaped, and how are we shaped by it? All of my books deal with notions of finding home.

"Up from the Sea," my debut Young Adult novel in verse about the March 11, 2011 Japan tsunami, is just out from Crown Books for Young Readers/Penguin Random House. It's about making a home within yourself when the only home you've ever known is destroyed. Named a #1 YA pick by BUZZFEED:http://www.buzzfeed.com/farrahpenn/ya...

My memoir, "In Search of the Sun" charts my quest for motherhood across two decades, two continents, and two thousand yoga poses. Its about creating connection and family--finding a home in each other, and in the world.

"Jet Black and the Ninja Wind," a YA adventure I co-wrote with my Japanese husband, is about a biracial girl seeking home across cultures. Her mission is to save her ancestral home and its ancient treasure.

Then there's the poetry. "Yoga Poems: Lines to Unfold By" deals with finding a home in one’s body. "Yoga Heart: Lines on the Six Perfections" charts the path to finding a home in the spirit.

I often write with my husband, the Middle Grade novelist Shogo Oketani (author of J-Boys, Kazuo's World, Tokyo, 1965 (translated by Avery Udagawa) about five fifth graders growing up during the first Tokyo Olympics). Building a bridge from East to West, we’ve collaborated on a book about kanji, a collection of poetry by a pacifist Japanese soldier, and the Jet Black trilogy in progress. Other couples finish each other’s sentences. We try to finish each other’s books.

Other Stuff people ask about: My writing has appeared in the New York Times, the Huffington Post, Yoga Journal, Shambhala Sun, The Best Buddhist Writing, The Japan Times, Art in America, and the San Francisco Chronicle, among others.

I've been fortunate to have received some literary awards, including the APALA Asia Pacific Award in Young Adult Literature, a SCBWI Work-in-Progress Fiction Honor grant, a PEN Syndicated Fiction Award, The PEN Josephine Miles Award for Poetry, individual grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities and the California Arts Council. Shogo and I received The U.S.-Japan Friendship Commission Award from Columbia University for the Translation of Japanese Literature. I've also received the Benjamin Franklin Award for Editorial Excellence, and three Pushcart Prize nominations.

I have a B.A. from U.C. Berkeley and an M.A. in Creative Writing from San Francisco State University. I've taught writing and literature there and at the University of Tokyo. I teach yoga and meditation internationally.

I love reading, dogs, and chocolate--preferably all at the same time. Thanks for stopping by.

Reviews

[Scarlett Peterson]

It's interesting to read form translated; obviously things are going to be lost in translation, and most notably so, in this case, we lose the syllabic form of both the haiku and tanka. I did find a few examples in which they kept the form perfectly despite translation, though that's not the point. The writing here was stunning, and many of the poems were memorable.

[Shawn]

Very good book on modern female Japanese haiku/tanka poets. It gives a short bio and a sample of 10 or so poems from each. It was nice to experience the different poets' styles back-to-back like that.

[Leyla Shuri]

This book is a loose translation of haiku and tanka by some Japanese poets.
The haiku and tanka in this book do not follow the format set.

[Sarah]

I really like the work of Motoko Michiura, Yūko Kawano, and Amari Hayashi!

[Patricia]

Still not sure I understand Haiku and Tanka, especially since it is translated. Some very beautiful thoughts.

[Crystal]

　　The poems stand on their own in English, but I would have preferred a bilingual format. I guess I'll just have to search out the originals on my own!

[ej]

2/5 can’t say i loved it or even liked it

[Jonathan Lee B.]

A Long Rainy Season is blindfolded dessert.

[Tod Jones]

Lovely.