| Oregon Haiku & Tanka Society |
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| Her withdrawal from the Tumblewords project is more because she can't do all the "leg work" involved, as she still has plenty to keep her busy. Besides working on "Walking the Land Backwards," she is also working on a book of haiku, a form of Japanese verse comprised of three lines and referring to one of the seasons, and sumi-e, Japanese brush painting. She learned sumi-e from a master of sumi-e at the Zen Center in the Jemez Mountains during the early '70s'. Around that same time she wrote and published Moon Puddles, a very successful volume of haiku, which was written while she was studying haiku with the Haiku Society of America in New York. Moon Puddles, as well as her new book, Mount Gassan's Slope, is already on many book shelves, including the Rare Books/Poetry Library at the State University of New York, Buffalo; the Rockefeller Library at Brown University, Providence, RI; and the American Haiku Archives at the California State Rare Books Research Library, Sacramento, CA. Ann feels that haiku is at the root of all writing and it is haiku that she always returns to. She's working on the new book with Kenichi Sato, a Japanese writer, who will be translating the book into Japanese. The volume will have the English and Japanese versions on facing pages. Newell first met Sato three years ago when he came to this country to meet her, an American writer who was writing in this Japanese form. "Haiku is extremely difficult. We don't quite understand it in this country yet," she said. "Because it's small, we're inclined to put it in the third grade, as something easy. It's a very deep study. Japanese people study it to the end of their lives, hoping to develop for themselves a 'perfect haiku' if that's possible. "That is what Kenichi is doing�he's now 69, and plans to study to the end of his life. I, too, am closing my circle that way," said Newell. She joined the Haiku Society in 1974, and from that has branched out into many different genres, "making the circle larger." I'm very excited about this project," she said. "It's quite different. He admires my haiku, and will be translating it into Japanese. It will be a book for readers in two countries." Newell received a call from Hill some time after she first withdrew from the Tumblewords project. "She said, 'Well, we planned to keep it from you, but we have a surprise party for you. I had to give in and call you, because you need to pick out some poetry to be read," she laughed. Newell put the time frame as 25 years, as that has been when she has both written and published the majority of her poetry, over 1,000 pieces. "I'm looking back now, and seeing what I've done over the past 25 years," said Newell. "It was a larger piece of work than I expected, but I was so glad I did it�it's taken me back through the years. |
| Alamogordo Daily News�Ann Newell (Cont.) |