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This handsomely produced volume, containing fifty six haibun together with some twenty haiga, continues the series which began with “Up Against the Window” of 1999. In that inaugural volume the editors (Kacian and Ross) reported that “haibun is experiencing a renaissance in twentieth-century America and indeed, in other countries.” Since then Red Moon Press has arguably represented and encouraged this re-birth more than any other publishing house.

   Since the first volume, which presented only American haibun and haiga, the annual anthology has extended its selection of the best haibun published in English each year to include the rest of the English speaking world. It has co-opted a third editor, the BHS’s own Ken Jones, and has launched a new venture, contemporary haibun online, as a forum for presenting more haibun as well as offering feedback and discussion and articles on the genre. All this will undoubtedly improve the quality and understanding that the increasing numbers of haibun writers bring to their work.

   Of the haibun included in CH6 (presented in alphabetical order of writers) many impressed with their depth and interest. While some pieces were under two hundred words, others were six or seven pages long. It is difficult to do justice to the breadth and variety of the volume as a whole in this brief review, but I’ve selected two of the shorter examples:
 
The first by John Stephenson –  WITNESS

                                                 pressed
                                                 in a scrapbook
                                                 scentless lilacs

For those who are old, unattractive, shy or, God forbid, all of the above, sex takes on the nature of a miracle that has taken place in the course of someone else’s religion; an Egyptian’s view of the Red Sea parting.

                                                 what blooms
                                                 where the garden
                                                  isn’t this year

   Referencing the linked mysteries of love and death, this little gem excels in exploiting the counterpoint between haiku and prose. Both stand up well on their own – the two haiku are very poignant, incorporating the aesthetics of Aware and Karabi, while the prose presents an arresting train of thought, originally and entertainingly expressed. Together, prose and poetry inform each other creatively, the prose giving a human context and application for the haiku, the haiku adding feeling and universality to the prose. The whole piece carries us through the changes of tone, sentiment and viewpoint very expertly so that we are left with a cluster of complex and rewarding emotions and impressions.

The second example is from Roberta Beary – VISITING DAY

high on my da’s shoulders I was no more than five into the bar we went and I carrying the beer bucket the barman calling out beer…here…beer…here the barman filling it overflowing what a head on her can you imagine 5¢ for all that beer can you imagine that and da and I laughing all the way home he carried me
    
                                                  overheated room
                                                  a scent of mothballs
                                                  from the open drawer

                                                       for Patrick Beary (d. 16Jan05)

   This haibun presents not one but two moments of time, one a memory, the other a trigger for that memory spanning the duration of a Father/Daughter relationship. What first strikes one is the choice of prose style. The stream of consciousness flow, lacking in punctuation, not only fits the image of a small child’s breathless perceptions of her, perhaps not often visited dad and his drinking place, but also suggests both the environment and the period by invoking the demotic style of explorative writing of the fifties and the smoky bar atmosthere of the beat generation which may well be the period when the memory is set. The haiku image, evocative in itself, is given particular resonance as she clears away her dead father’s clothes, and opens the drawers of her preserved memories.

   This short piece, like many in the anthology, has many qualities that we have begun to expect from haibun, strong images, economy and unobtrusiveness of style, imagination and feeling, and at the end a sense of epiphany as the intense focus on one detail also yields a perspective on a whole life. I’d recommend this Red Moon series to readers and writers of haibun alike.