Seasons in Haiku, divinded into the four seasons, is a provocation to consider the state of our relationships with the seasons which Takara calls Song, Shimmer, Shadows and Sojourn. If we follow in the author's footsteps and give this matter some attention, we likely will share her journey in moving into an active state of intention to change the aspects of our harmful human behavior which is altering seasonal cycles and amplifying the current climate crises. Lest you feel overwhelmed by the looming specter of an Armageddon-like climate debacle, be assured that Takara remains a poet, not a preacher. She is faithful to the precept that art enables us to feel what we may not yet understand. However, she is also pushing us to rise to the occasion of climate action, not by listening to just to news and information, but by following our intuition that the hurt of the earth is within us, so that it becomes imperative to take a look deep inside ourselves for genuine meaning of the greater universe.Seing, listening, hearing and transformation are key.
In this respect, Takara follows the traditional Zen Buddhist masters who originated the haiku as a potent and packed three-line verse aimed to equip the seeker of truth with a sudden epiphany about the essence of our collective being.
Takara returns the haiku to this historic vocation: not just to merely describe our epic juggernaut of changing seasons, but to heighten our consciousness of how the seasonal rhythms lie outside our vain attempts at harnessing their mysterious powers for our own self-centered agendas. While the mechanization of technologies threatens to blind us to our kinship with the seasons, Takara's haiku, by contrast, prod us to look in the mirror and see we have become both victim and perpetrator of the problems that now plague the unfolding of the four seasons. "..
In terms of its contemporary vibe, Seasons in Haiku offers up a firm reality check on the environment, emotions, and feelings which is an antidote to the contagion of disinformation about global relations and climate change. Here the question that begs is this: Why is it that when we have never before been so connected across barriers of space and time via a digital revolution, we are instead divided around a denial of the facts and understanding that can save us from real harm? Clearly, this tragic situation is a symptom of what we really yearn for in a worldwide crisis: it is not just statistical data, it is connection, replete with heart and soul. It is, therefore, understandable that the language of poetry has been undergoing a resurgence. Long heralded as a means of speaking truth to power, the poet succeeds where logic and ideology fail in catalyzing the compassion and the empathy that are crucial to the healing of trauma, locally, nationally, and beyond.
Throughout this volume of haiku, Takara reveals that her identity as a woman of Black and indigenous descent means she is no stranger to the trauma of systemic injustice. While we hear her accepting the broad panoply of nature's seasonal cycles as a source of solace in hard times, we also hear her sing back to the inexplicable rages of human nature that she has confronted with courage. by Liza Simon, writer
Ultimately, the laser-focus of language and literary luminescence cast by Takara's book on the four seasons is wondrous inoculation against divisiveness and depression. Accept its call to repurpose the connectivity that all the devices of modernity have given us. It is an opportunity to stop scrolling, hit pause on our devices, and dwell in mysteries of natural cycles that are genuine poetry in motion.
Takara, Kathryn Waddell: - Kathryn Waddell Takara, PhD, is the author of 9 books.Owner, co-Editor, Publisher of Pacific Raven Press, LLC (18 titles)Service: My service to the community includes healing through writing, poetry, editing, and publishing. Since Covid 2020, I have published: my Red Dreams Volcano Visions which includes Hawaiian mythology and a glossary; Close Caskets by Dante Clark, a California poet; Our Spirits Carry Our Voices (a collection of poems by West African and California poets); A Silhouette in Time by Lily Wu; Sisters Across Oceans (a collection of poems by Hawaii and Ghanaian women); my newest collection, Seasons in Haiku.Awards: The American Book Award, The History Makers, Black Futures Award, Life-Time Achievement award (NAACP), Knighted in the Orthodox Order of St. John in 2013. Recent activities: I was interviewed nationally and internationally on my research on Blacks in Hawaii, gave many ZOOM lectures and poetry readings, completed several podcasts, co-produced a jazz night in Honolulu featuring Thelonius Monk, gave a presentation at the UN/NGO, performed in several local and national poetry readings on line and recently in person in San Francisco. In 2020, I curated a public library Black History month featuring local scholars and artists, and served as a docent giving a virtual walking tour featuring 30 nationally acclaimed Black artists at the Honolulu Museum of Art. I have consulted on various projects including a future film on Martin Luther King, Jr. in Hawaii (1959) and his influence in the islands.
