Books Received
Slow Boat to Samoa
By Matthew Caretti
Red Moon Press
Winchester, Virginia
2025, paperback, 128 pages
ISBN: 978-1-958408-68-1
$20 USD
Ordering Information
From the Publisher: “In Slow Boat to Samoa, Matthew Caretti is a master storyteller at work. He tells us two stories — in the first, he is chronicler of place, time and life. In the deeper, layered second, the quality is shamanic, prophetic in its wisdom, restrained in its telling. He shows us the world he inhabits from the points of view of a witness, a lived experience, and the land’s ancestral intelligence.”— Shobhana Kumar. The author, who teaches English in Pago Pago, takes readers into South Pacific island life through a selection of 80 haibun.
Clothes to Go Out In
By Margaret Chula
The Poetry Box
Portland, Oregon
2025, paperback, 56 pages
ISBN: 978-1-956285-90-1
$14 USD
Ordering Information
Collects 32 of the author’s haibun and tanka prose. “In Maggie Chula’s new collection of haibun … she shares both love and loss in deeply sensory images. We meet hostile dream-ghost dolls, empathize with a fake philodendron, experience moments from world travels—Manila, Tibet, Montreal, Japan—and more. Linking all these poems are remembered clothes and fabrics: from the dusky rose satin dressing gown she “rescued” from a laundromat to the clothing her father and mother wore to go out in after death. These haibun, with their precise prose and startling leaps of haiku and tanka, are akin to colorful garments pinned together on a clothesline—often subtly linking to one another like renga verses. A wonder-full read!”—Penny Harter.
Moonglow: Haibun & Haiga & Haiku
By Dian Duchin Reed
Red Moon Press
Winchester, Virginia
2025, paperback, 112 pages
ISBN: 978-1-958408-72-8
$20 USD
Ordering Information
A selection of 29 haiga, 36 haibun, and 70 haiku. “Moonglow is a deeply personal journey that ebbs and flows between finely crafted haiga, succinctly written haibun and haiku. Each page resonates with keen observations showcasing Duchin Reed’s skill and obvious love of her journey through life. A visual and storytelling gem.”— Ron C. Moss