Light on Water
     by Amelia Fielden                                                                                                                                        

"During the last three or four years—the period when most of the tanka in this book were published in jourals and anthologies all over the world—my life, divided among our homes in Canberra and on the Central Coast of eastern Australia, Seattle USA, and Japan, has been incredibly varied by the human and physical geography of each local. . . The one constant, I realise, has been the proximity and interplay of water: lakes, seas, rivers, harbours. born and brought up close to the Pacific Ocean, I have always loved and sought out bodies of water. Since retiring from government service as a Japanese translator in 2003, I have had even more time to delight in the effect of light on water, and to write poetry." From Amelia's introduction to Lighint on Water.  

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    
                                                                             Some verses from Light on Water

                                                                            
       

                                               

in my youth
always the singing sea
in senior years
still pleasure in the surge
below the lighthouse

tree bones
washed up on the shore—
wondering
what I'd have become
without this wanderlust
 
 

                                    "She hangs her hat in many places and calls them home. Readers accompany her to enjoy the adventure. It is the similarity of the experience and existence in various parts of the worled more than the difference that cvononects. Her devotess will find familiar concerns: continuity and renewal, a passion for family, friends, animals, nature, art and music. . . .Those unfamiliar with her work will find much to respect from this compasionate writer." Jan Dean, author of the poetry collection With One Brush.  
 

                                    Amelia Fielden is an Australian poet and translator of Japanese Literature. She has published seven collections of original tanka poetry in English and fifteen books of translated Japanese tanka.
 

 

To order Light on Water, contact Amelia at anafielden@hotmail.com ; price US $20 pp.
 

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