Poetry Magazines - The best collection of poetry magazines online - Simon Armitage

Riding the Wind by Ruth Robinson, Hub Editions, 2005. ISBN 1-903746-46-9. £5.50 inc. postage and packing, from: Ruth Robinson, 19 Landisdale, Danbury, Chelmsford, Essex CM3 HQR
                           
Ruth Robinson takes the reader off in her hot air balloon to show us her world. From Ruth’s photograph on the front cover, to the ISBN number on the back, this book floats with quality.

What none of the protagonists in the recent debates in Blithe Spirit about haiku mention is ‘content’ and how it can obviously affect how a person responds to a poem. Having said that, some poets manage to make any content interesting and evocative without resorting to contrivance. Ruth Robinson is one of them. Like A A Marcoff I see perception as a dialectical process, which is why my bête noire is projection. If you know yourself the more clearly you can see other people, animals, etc., as they are. Ruth Robinson knows herself very well.
 A splashed frog                                                telephone call
 leaps ahead                                                      the receiver smells
 of my watering-can                                           of chopped shallots

 above the tree-line                                            estuary
 only the whisper                                                the artist’s brush
 of the chairlift wheel                                          catches the hot sun

Notice the other quality in these haiku that isn’t being discussed at the moment: immediacy.

Obviously, as with any collection of nearly 100 haiku, some of the poems are stronger than others, but I can honestly say that there isn’t one dud. And there are four tanka right at the end.

Sarajevo walk                                               end of a hot day
Serb and Muslim united                                 dead flies
shot from front and back                                on the window-ledge

                                         bare mast reflected
                                         in silver coastal water
                                         the creeks deserted,
                                         I wait an empty shell;
                                         you come with the tide and wind

My advice to readers is don’t read all the theoretical debates about haiku. Buy this book and you will learn, maybe not everything about haiku, but certainly some important lessons.