NEW HOPE INTERNATIONAL REVIEW

An independent small press poetry review

NHI independent review
PEGGY WILLIS LYLES: THIRTY-SIX TONES
Saki Press
1021 Gregory
Normal
IL 61761
USA
ISBN 1 893823 08 3
$4.50
[postage, 55¢ USA
76¢ Canada
$2.55 overseas]
checks in US funds payable to "Lenore Hutton"

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This page last updated: 13th October 2008.
PEGGY WILLIS LYLES: THIRTY-SIX TONES

This is a tiny book, only 11x14cm, but contains 36 Tones or rather one kasen renku. According to the introduction a traditional kasen renku has 36 stanzas or tones. The tones in this book are haiku or senryu and have been carefully selected not only to stand alone but also to create a coherent whole. The structure has, the poet asserts, been guided by the need to allow for the seasonal requirements of the format and obligatory stanzas referring to the moon, blossom and love. The result is a selection that is loosely based on the conventions of kasen renku but which gives the reader a way into the haiku represented.

The haiku themselves are delicate and sharp. The poet has taken the trouble to produce poetry that produces an arrow of recognition in the reader such as

	morning calm
	the song that hovers
	out of sight
or
		oval frame
		a woman curves
		around her child"
This is a selection of large ideas in a little package.

reviewer: Polly Bird.