BOOK NOTE: FIRE PEARLS

BOOK NOTE: Please forward to all interested parties.


October 19, 2006

FIRE PEARLS: SHORT MASTERPIECES OF THE HUMAN HEART

M. Kei, Editor


FIRE PEARLS: SHORT MASTERPIECES OF THE HUMAN HEART —
Edited by M. Kei, trade paperback, 160 pages, $14.95 USD. Available from or major booksellers.

A handsome new anthology of nearly four hundred tanka, kyoka, cinquains, and free verse by more than fifty poets from around the world. Includes both well known and emerging voices, arranged into five seasons that explore the human heart through its many manifestations of love and passion.

“Fire Pearls will be quite a surprise for those who are frequent readers of tanka, the five-line poem with a 1300 year history. For newcomers to tanka, the poems should be a challenge and a delight. The last section, entitled 'Fifth Season,' is a tour de force. To journey through this anthology is to experience key moments of our lives.“ — Sanford Goldstein, co-translator of Tangled Hair: Selected Tanka from Midaregami

“What a magnificent anthology . . . it weakens, heartens, humbles, enlarges, and delivers so many poetic truths that I just am so glad to see this come to fruition.” — Tom Clausen, author of Growing Late


Excerpts from Fire Pearls:

between sun and shade
a butterfly pauses
like none I've seen—
who ever falls in love
with someone they know?

Michael McClintock



the tilt
of her head to undo
an earring—
fortresses crumble into
winter moonlight

Larry Kimmel



rain-furled hibiscus—
in the slow refolding
of our secret places
we draw even closer
than at passion's zenith

Beverley George



White birch
with black-streaked trunk,
How many Russian girls
have hugged you, crying for their long
lost loves?

Zhanna P. Rader



His heart
is a skeleton key
that unlocks doors
that should never
be opened.

M. Kei



mourners assemble
after Joe’s funeral—
they come
to pick widow Green’s apples
and press out the amber juice

John Daleiden



and still
there may be encounters
in this penny world,
and still the electric surge
of a look, a stare, a nod

Sanford Goldstein



To purchase, or for more information, contact:

M. Kei, Editor
P O Box 1118
Elkton, MD, 21922-1118

.