Original, contemporary haiku celebrating the sports and athletes of the Olympics - from an acclaimed poet and an international gallery of guests. Award-winning haiku poet Kit Pancoast Nagamura offers a collection of original poems that explore the beauty, physical effort, and essence of all the sports of the summer Olympics. At first glance, haiku and sports may seem like an odd pairing. But actually, there's a strong similarity between the two. The grace, balance, and focus that are required of an athlete are exactly what the haiku poet seeks in order to capture an emotion, a mood, an action in just a few, carefully chosen words. Anticipation of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics is building -- and what better way to share in the experience of the games than through Japan's beloved poetic form, haiku, which has been rediscovered and embraced in recent years by a new generation. From the elegance of a gymnast's leap and the fluid motion of a runner's body, to the thwump of the soccer ball hitting the net, poetry lovers and sports fans alike will feel the thrill and intensity as the world's best go for the gold. In this volume, the first to cover such a wide range of athletics, each Olympic sport is represented by three haiku written by Nagamura, plus one or two by a guest poet. Each poem is presented in both English and Japanese. Evocative photographs and illustrations complement the text.

One of the more unusual baseball books of the season, this remarkable new collection, which includes poems from both America and Japan, captures perfectly the thrill of the game in haiku.

In Bashō's Journey, David Landis Barnhill provides the definitive translation of Matsuo Bashō's literary prose, as well as a companion piece to his previous translation, Bashō's Haiku. One of the world's greatest nature writers, Bashō (1644–1694) is well known for his subtle sensitivity to the natural world, and his writings have influenced contemporary American environmental writers such as Gretel Ehrlich, John Elder, and Gary Snyder. This volume concentrates on Bashō's travel journal, literary diary (Saga Diary), and haibun. The premiere form of literary prose in medieval Japan, the travel journal described the uncertainty and occasional humor of traveling, appreciations of nature, and encounters with areas rich in cultural history. Haiku poetry often accompanied the prose. The literary diary also had a long history, with a format similar to the travel journal but with a focus on the place where the poet was living. Bashō was the first master of haibun, short poetic prose sketches that usually included haiku. As he did in Bashō's Haiku, Barnhill arranges the work chronologically in order to show Bashō's development as a writer. These accessible translations capture the spirit of the original Japanese prose, permitting the nature images to hint at the deeper meaning in the work. Barnhill's introduction presents an overview of Bashō's prose and discusses the significance of nature in this literary form, while also noting Bashō's significance to contemporary American literature and environmental thought. Excellent notes clearly annotate the translations.

Call it “Zen and the Art of Farming” or a “Little Green Book,” Masanobu Fukuoka’s manifesto about farming, eating, and the limits of human knowledge presents a radical challenge to the global systems we rely on for our food. At the same time, it is a spiritual memoir of a man whose innovative system of cultivating the earth reflects a deep faith in the wholeness and balance of the natural world. As Wendell Berry writes in his preface, the book “is valuable to us because it is at once practical and philosophical. It is an inspiring, necessary book about agriculture because it is not just about agriculture.” Trained as a scientist, Fukuoka rejected both modern agribusiness and centuries of agricultural practice, deciding instead that the best forms of cultivation mirror nature’s own laws. Over the next three decades he perfected his so-called “do-nothing” technique: commonsense, sustainable practices that all but eliminate the use of pesticides, fertilizer, tillage, and perhaps most significantly, wasteful effort. Whether you’re a guerrilla gardener or a kitchen gardener, dedicated to slow food or simply looking to live a healthier life, you will find something here—you may even be moved to start a revolution of your own.