Cicada Forest: an Anthology of Tanka

by Mariko Kitakubo
translated by Amelia Fielden

Bilingual--English and Japanese

Cicada Forest contains a body of new work, followed by large selections from Kitakubo's first and second collections, I Want to Tell You in the Words of Waves and When the Music Stops (previously published only in Japanese), and a smaller selection from her bi-lingual book, On This Same Star.

More About Cicada Forest:

"Cicada Forest takes us on a sweeping journey through a progression of themes, subject matter, and settings that reflect Kitakubo's life as a woman, daughter, lover, and mother . . .Kitakubo's voice is often positively elemental, felt as a force of nature . . .Yet, ironically, the finest poems in Cicada Forest appear to concern themselves with small things:

how small
I really am
here between
a potato field
and the wide sky

it's myself
a hundred years later
I'm scooping up,
both hands full
of warm sand 

What is large here is Kitakubo's transcendent, personal vision of human experience, a vision and sense that places such things as potato fields and handfuls of beach sand at the center of the world's stage . . .Kitakubo is a poet whose voice and sense of the world place her directly within that magnificent literary genealogy that includes Murasaki Shikibu, Ono no Komachi, Ootagaki Rengetsu, Saigyo, Ryokan, and Yosano Akiko." Excerpted from "Preface to Cicada Forest" by Michael McClintock, President, Tanka Society of America.

Ordering information is available from the poet at jerushya2005@yahoo.co.jp or tanka@kitakubo.com.  The price is $15 US, plus postage.  In the United States, Cicada Forest may be ordered from the museum store at the Pacific Asia Museum in Pasadena, CA, www.pacificasiamuseum.org or by contacting the museum manager, Ms. TaiLing Wong at tailingwong@yahoo.com. Or you can call 626/449-2742 and at the prompt select "gift and bookstore."

 

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