Kyoto Momiji Tanka

Poems and photographs of Japan in Autumn

Andrew Lansdown

Rhiza Press (Capalaba, Queensland), 2019
(hardcover, 144 pages)
ISBN: 9781925139419

Price: $24.95 (free postage in Australia)

BACK COVER BLURB

Kyoto Momiji Tanka is a stunning collection of poems and photographs celebrating the ancient capital of Japan, Kyoto, during autumn, when the maples (momiji) vividly colour the natural, cultural and emotional terrains of the Japanese.

The poems (written in a traditional Japanese form known as tanka) and photographs introduce readers to a fascinating world of Shinto brides, tanuki, spirit foxes, geisha, shakuhachi players and, of course, autumn maples.

Kyoto Momiji Tanka is a companion volume to Kyoto Sakura Tanka (Rhiza Press, 2016), which celebrates Kyoto in spring during the cherry blossom (sakura) season.

FOUR POEMS AND PHOTOGRAPHS FROM KYOTO MOMIJI TANKA

Seasonal Attire

Very beautiful—

a woman in traditional

obi and sandal.

And see, in its autumnal

kimono, the small maple.

. . . © Andrew Lansdown

Shakuhachi Master

An exhalation,

a hesitation, a hollow—

even with skill, how

can a man make haunting music

from such forms of nothingness?

. . . © Andrew Lansdown

Early Autumn Momiji

Such delicate hands

the Japanese maples have,

so petite and green,

waving goodbye to summer

with here and there a cut finger.

Surrender

Washing their plumage

in a patch of river-rinsed sand,

the sparrows give them-

selves over to feelings of bliss,

as do we, to be watching this.