The most recent issue of the respected British journal Presence (#71, November 2021) included a review of my haiku collection, breaking my journey (Red Moon Press). The review was written by English poet, Julie Mellor. You can find the Presence website here, and you can visit Julie’s personal website here.

Julie’s review highlights the multiple themes woven through my book including the flora and fauna of Australia’s natural environment, and that of other countries. Julie also notes the way many of my haiku reference personal relationships and interactions, often juxtaposed with an element from nature.

A number of my haiku reflect on the impermanence of life and its finite character. As Julie says in her review:

One of the most important themes seems to be that of a writer moving towards old age. In the face of death, there is a need to pause, to take stock:

breaking
my journey
this pine

snowy owl
I’ll leave this world
alone

The collection intersperses a couple of haibun and haiku sequences, but for me it’s the individual haiku, particularly the ones that convey a sense of time passing, which have the deepest resonance:

grandpa’s window
we touch raindrops
from the other side

a crow at dusk
ink sinks deeper
into the page

Ultimately, it was these poems that stayed with me long after I had finished the book.

My thanks go to Presence and to Julie Mellor for publishing a review of breaking my journey.

You can purchase a copy of breaking my journey here or, if you live in North America, you may wish to purchase a copy direct from the publisher, Red Moon Press.