Thank you all! Fire Pearls 2 is rated #1 Hot New Releases in Poetry Anthologies at Amazon http://www.amazon.com/gp/new-releases/books/10250/ref=zg_bs_tab_t_bsnr
Fire Pearls 2 : Short Masterpieces of Love and Passion is a worthy successor to the classic of contemporary tanka poetry. Covering all aspects of love and passion from the delights of first love to the agony of abortion, over 90 poets featured in 750 poems present every aspect of the human heart from the romantic to the desperate. Edited and with an introduction by the well-known poet and editor, M. Kei, Fire Pearls 2 is an essential acquisition for lovers of fine literature.
Print for sale at Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Fire-Pearls-Short-Masterpieces-Passion/dp/1489595023/ref=sr_1_7?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1371759885&sr=1-7&keywords=M.+Kei
Kindle for Sale at Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00DHM0PUS
Showing posts with label Fire Pearls. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Fire Pearls. Show all posts
Thursday, June 20, 2013
Friday, August 06, 2010
Fire Pearls for Weddings
I stopped by my local library yesterday and chatted with the librarians. It turns out that Fire Pearls is often checked out of the library for weddings! I presume people are looking for poetry suitable to read at weddings. I'm very charmed at this unexpected development, and I wish all engaged people happily ever after. Especially so now that Proposition 8 has been overturned in California, and gay marriage is legal again in that state. Here's hoping my home state of Maryland will soon follow.
~K~
~K~
Sunday, April 04, 2010
10% Discount on Keibooks During April
If you have been planning to buy a copy of Atlas Poetica : A Journal of Poetry of Place in Contemporary Tanka (AtlasPoetica.org), or my new novel Pirates of the Narrow Seas (NarrowSeas.blogspot.com), or one of my previous titles, such as Fire Pearls : Short Masterpieces of the Human Heart or Heron Sea, Short Poems of the Chesapeake Bay, April is the month to do it!
Lulu.com, home to Keibooks, is offering a special coupon for a discount of 10% off the cover price of one purchase. Visit http://stores.Lulu.com/Keibooks and at check out, enter the code 'SHOWERS'. You may use it once during the month of April for a single purchase. Discount applies to book cover price, and does not include the cost of shipping and handling. The coupon can only be used for a single purchase, but you can buy as many books or journals as you wish in that purchase.
Happy reading!
~K~
Lulu.com, home to Keibooks, is offering a special coupon for a discount of 10% off the cover price of one purchase. Visit http://stores.Lulu.com/Keibooks and at check out, enter the code 'SHOWERS'. You may use it once during the month of April for a single purchase. Discount applies to book cover price, and does not include the cost of shipping and handling. The coupon can only be used for a single purchase, but you can buy as many books or journals as you wish in that purchase.
Happy reading!
~K~
Wednesday, October 01, 2008
1000 Tanka
Today the publication of Modern English Tanka 9 marks an important milestone in my career: I have a thousand tanka in print, with several more to be coming out soon. It's a prodigious quantity of work, and made even more startling when the reader reflects that with a single exception, they were all published between spring of 2006 and now--a span of little more than two years. What is even more astonishing are the changes in the tanka world that have unfolded in that time.
In 2004 when I first attempted to publish (and had a single tanka published in the TSA's member anthology, to find the moon), tanka was wallowing in a straitjacket of japonisme and rule-bound demands regarding form. It must have a pivot, it must be bi-partite, it mustbe autobiographical, it must reek of the stale perfume of old Japan . . . Mine wasn't like that, and after the rejections and admonishments piled up, I decided, "Feh, I wrote for my own pleasure and that of my friends. I'll go back to doing that."
Two years later, the death of my mother and my nephew's suicide were hard blows to carry. I wrote a great deal of tanka. At the same time, I had been serving with the skipjack Martha Lewis for most of a year and found what I loved: the Chesapeake Bay, seen and worked from the deck of an old wooden sailboat. I kept writing, but what changed now was that the charms of Old Japan (that had captured me in my youth, indeed as they have captured many of us) fell away. Confronted with the realities of my own life, both beautiful and terrible, most of the Japanese verse grew brittle and cracked. It was too precious a medium to carry what my eyes saw and my heart felt. It became abundantly clear to me why the waka of Japan had grown increasingly irrelevant until it was the province of a few poetasters and dilettante.
Not all poets writing in English were ensnared this way, but it was hard to find the ones who weren't. I didn't even know the 'tanka world' existed. Joining some email lists again, I decided to try again. I still ran into much of what I had already run into, but this time somebody noticed: Michael McClintock. I recognized the name from having read (and abandoned) haiku, but McClintock, along with a handful of other poets, had stuck in my mind as somebody who wrote poetry that was worth reading, and that was categorically different from the herd. He encouraged me, and Robert Wilson at Simply Haiku published several of my tanka.
Along the way I also met Denis M. Garrison who was finishing the last issue of Haiku Harvest and moving on to a new project. At that time he called it 3 x 5 Poetry Review, but as we corresponded and met in person, the project evolved. While Denis' ideas and work is his own, I like to think our conversations helped to shape his views. The result was that 3 x 5 morphed and became Modern English Tanka, which two years later is hands down the premiere journal of tanka in English.
Feeling my education to be deficient, I had been cramming knowledge of tanka in Japanese and English. I quickly noticed that the average resident of Tankaville was even less knowledgeable than I, and considerably less motivated to rectify that ignorance. They wanted to write and read poetry. As much as I must endorse such a view, it must be coupled with discipline and knowledge to amount to anything that a larger circle of people might want to read. In short, the tanka world was much more of a 'tanka club' at the time.
Accordingly I hatched the notion of creating an anthology that might popularize tanka by presenting to people who were not members of the club, while at the same time, serving to demonstrate to the club just how broad tanka could be. The result was Fire Pearls : Short Masterpieces of the Human Heart . Denis and Michael supported the project, but when differences of opinion developed over how to manage it, withdrew financial support. I published it out of my own pocket. Denis continued to provide technical assistance, and Michael was instrumental in bringing the work to the attention of poets and readers.
Fire Pearls has sold over 300 copies, which constitutes a bestseller in Tankaland. It has entered the canon of tanka in English, appearing on recommended reading lists, and referenced in other articles. Many of the poets who appeared in it are proud of their participation. But aside from its own achievements, it spurred others. Garrison and McClintock, with proof that 'concept anthologies' worked, launched their own series of projects, published through Modern English Tanka Press. McClintock has dubbed this 'the Little Age of Anthologies,' but what is important to remember is that Denis Garrison is the foundation upon which the anthologies are built. He has been exceptionally generous in supporting worthy ideas, and so other editors, such as Alexis Rotella, have partnered with him to produced anthologies of great size and beauty. Denis' expertise has been tapped by the Tanka Society of America for help in publishing their last member anthology, Sixty Sunflowers .
Publishing a book, even with the benefits of economy offered by new models such as print on demand, is no easy task. It requires a suite of skills involving editing, book design, administration, cover design, layout, computer skills, marketing, distribution, and more. Few individuals possess the full suite; they are usually found in a team. Modern English Tanka Press has prospered, and by doing so, has changed the shape of tanka as we know it.
Denis' immense openness to form and idea has provided a forum that enriches the tanka world. It allows diversity of content and form, idea and counter-idea. The tanka club is no more: it has been replaced by the tanka world. It is a much larger, more inclusive, varied, and lively world than it was before. Truthfully, the tanka world has always been larger than the tanka club that thought itself the be-all and end-all of tanka. My own researches into tanka in English dug up evidence that tanka has been written and published in English since the tail end of the nineteenth century. My Bibliography of English-language Tanka is well over 700 books, chapbooks, journals, and other stand-alone media. (I do not record articles and other short works.) What has happened is that by providing an open forum, it has been possible to inform tanka readership of what has been out there all along, and to forge some connections that have yielded a great understanding and awareness. Tanka the island has become tanka the voyage.
Along the way, new journals have been founded and old journals have folded. New contests have been offered and prizes awarded. In remains to be seen whether the new arrivals will elevate and expand tanka as we know it, or merely provide a haven for the sponsor's particular pleasures. To a certain extent, new arrivals are reacting to the promiscuous publication of Modern English Tanka by staking out territories of their own, more tightly focussed on a narrower set of criteria. This is well and good--tanka thrives when more minds create more venues. The more there are, and the more they differ from each other, the more likely readers and poets are to find green pastures of their own delight.
Denis Garrison has often written about tanka's potential as the new lyric poetry in English. I myself am not so sure that English-speakers in general want a new lyric poetry; but at least some of us do. I do think the audience for tanka is growing and will continue to grow, but I doubt that lyric poetry has the capacity to capture the 21st century imagination that is saturated with videogames, reality television, and the looming disaster of an American economic meltdown. Lyric poetry does not admit works on economic collapse and the romance of the cell phone.
Lyric poetry is out of touch with modern life. Even as it focusses on micro details of that life, it provides an insulation between the reader and the reality. Modern Japanese tanka poets can write about being tear-gassed and arrested by the police, about menstruation and picking up young men half their age, but I have never seen those subjects in English-language poetry. Poets like Dave Bacharach and Andrew Riutta who can write about unpaid mortgages and prostitution do so through the lens of a gritty pastoralism remarkable both for speaking things rarely spoken in tanka and by speaking it through the lyric voice. They say ugly things with beautiful words.
I am as guilty as most and maybe more in my poetry. Lyricism suits my natural voice. I like the lyric world. I see beauty even in hardship. Yet I can't help feeling that I have accomplished a fundamental failure as a poet: I have soothed, instead of roused.
I have written works that are less lyric, more surreal, sharper, and darker. They don't get published. No, not even in Modern English Tanka, the most welcoming of them all. And so, after publishing one thousand tanka, instead of feeling successful, I feel disgruntled. I've felt this way before. More than a decade ago I wrote fiction. After working diligent and enjoying a certain amount of success in that field, I realized that editors were publishing certain sorts of things from me and declining others. The result was that a viewing of my published work gave a very biased view of who I was as a writer. I tried to break through, but couldn't. Editors publish what editors want to publish. I quit writing fiction rather than collude.
As the editor of Atlas Poetica , I have a bully pulpit from which to preach an alternate approach to tanka. It is bearing fruit. The first issue of tanka poetry of place provided an opportunity for poets to publish works which they loved and which readers also loved, but which lead in new directions. In the second issue, we covered new territory as poets began exploring and reporting on family and history, venturing to touch even larger topics, often through the means of tanka prose and tanka sequences that had few opportunities to be published elsewhere. Atlas Poetica was deliberately designed as a large format journal to accommodate such ventures.
Accordingly, I don't plan on going anywhere. Through the means at my disposal I will continue to advocate a larger, more complicated vision of tanka that expresses more of the myriad issues of our lives with innovation and skill. I encourage all poets to challenge themselves to go beyond the easy, the familiar, and the soothing, and I challenge all readers to open themselves to newness, change, and risk. Let tanka grow until it is more than lyric poetry, let it be the lyric of the real world.
~K~
In 2004 when I first attempted to publish (and had a single tanka published in the TSA's member anthology, to find the moon), tanka was wallowing in a straitjacket of japonisme and rule-bound demands regarding form. It must have a pivot, it must be bi-partite, it mustbe autobiographical, it must reek of the stale perfume of old Japan . . . Mine wasn't like that, and after the rejections and admonishments piled up, I decided, "Feh, I wrote for my own pleasure and that of my friends. I'll go back to doing that."
Two years later, the death of my mother and my nephew's suicide were hard blows to carry. I wrote a great deal of tanka. At the same time, I had been serving with the skipjack Martha Lewis for most of a year and found what I loved: the Chesapeake Bay, seen and worked from the deck of an old wooden sailboat. I kept writing, but what changed now was that the charms of Old Japan (that had captured me in my youth, indeed as they have captured many of us) fell away. Confronted with the realities of my own life, both beautiful and terrible, most of the Japanese verse grew brittle and cracked. It was too precious a medium to carry what my eyes saw and my heart felt. It became abundantly clear to me why the waka of Japan had grown increasingly irrelevant until it was the province of a few poetasters and dilettante.
Not all poets writing in English were ensnared this way, but it was hard to find the ones who weren't. I didn't even know the 'tanka world' existed. Joining some email lists again, I decided to try again. I still ran into much of what I had already run into, but this time somebody noticed: Michael McClintock. I recognized the name from having read (and abandoned) haiku, but McClintock, along with a handful of other poets, had stuck in my mind as somebody who wrote poetry that was worth reading, and that was categorically different from the herd. He encouraged me, and Robert Wilson at Simply Haiku published several of my tanka.
Along the way I also met Denis M. Garrison who was finishing the last issue of Haiku Harvest and moving on to a new project. At that time he called it 3 x 5 Poetry Review, but as we corresponded and met in person, the project evolved. While Denis' ideas and work is his own, I like to think our conversations helped to shape his views. The result was that 3 x 5 morphed and became Modern English Tanka, which two years later is hands down the premiere journal of tanka in English.
Feeling my education to be deficient, I had been cramming knowledge of tanka in Japanese and English. I quickly noticed that the average resident of Tankaville was even less knowledgeable than I, and considerably less motivated to rectify that ignorance. They wanted to write and read poetry. As much as I must endorse such a view, it must be coupled with discipline and knowledge to amount to anything that a larger circle of people might want to read. In short, the tanka world was much more of a 'tanka club' at the time.
Accordingly I hatched the notion of creating an anthology that might popularize tanka by presenting to people who were not members of the club, while at the same time, serving to demonstrate to the club just how broad tanka could be. The result was Fire Pearls : Short Masterpieces of the Human Heart . Denis and Michael supported the project, but when differences of opinion developed over how to manage it, withdrew financial support. I published it out of my own pocket. Denis continued to provide technical assistance, and Michael was instrumental in bringing the work to the attention of poets and readers.
Fire Pearls has sold over 300 copies, which constitutes a bestseller in Tankaland. It has entered the canon of tanka in English, appearing on recommended reading lists, and referenced in other articles. Many of the poets who appeared in it are proud of their participation. But aside from its own achievements, it spurred others. Garrison and McClintock, with proof that 'concept anthologies' worked, launched their own series of projects, published through Modern English Tanka Press. McClintock has dubbed this 'the Little Age of Anthologies,' but what is important to remember is that Denis Garrison is the foundation upon which the anthologies are built. He has been exceptionally generous in supporting worthy ideas, and so other editors, such as Alexis Rotella, have partnered with him to produced anthologies of great size and beauty. Denis' expertise has been tapped by the Tanka Society of America for help in publishing their last member anthology, Sixty Sunflowers .
Publishing a book, even with the benefits of economy offered by new models such as print on demand, is no easy task. It requires a suite of skills involving editing, book design, administration, cover design, layout, computer skills, marketing, distribution, and more. Few individuals possess the full suite; they are usually found in a team. Modern English Tanka Press has prospered, and by doing so, has changed the shape of tanka as we know it.
Denis' immense openness to form and idea has provided a forum that enriches the tanka world. It allows diversity of content and form, idea and counter-idea. The tanka club is no more: it has been replaced by the tanka world. It is a much larger, more inclusive, varied, and lively world than it was before. Truthfully, the tanka world has always been larger than the tanka club that thought itself the be-all and end-all of tanka. My own researches into tanka in English dug up evidence that tanka has been written and published in English since the tail end of the nineteenth century. My Bibliography of English-language Tanka is well over 700 books, chapbooks, journals, and other stand-alone media. (I do not record articles and other short works.) What has happened is that by providing an open forum, it has been possible to inform tanka readership of what has been out there all along, and to forge some connections that have yielded a great understanding and awareness. Tanka the island has become tanka the voyage.
Along the way, new journals have been founded and old journals have folded. New contests have been offered and prizes awarded. In remains to be seen whether the new arrivals will elevate and expand tanka as we know it, or merely provide a haven for the sponsor's particular pleasures. To a certain extent, new arrivals are reacting to the promiscuous publication of Modern English Tanka by staking out territories of their own, more tightly focussed on a narrower set of criteria. This is well and good--tanka thrives when more minds create more venues. The more there are, and the more they differ from each other, the more likely readers and poets are to find green pastures of their own delight.
Denis Garrison has often written about tanka's potential as the new lyric poetry in English. I myself am not so sure that English-speakers in general want a new lyric poetry; but at least some of us do. I do think the audience for tanka is growing and will continue to grow, but I doubt that lyric poetry has the capacity to capture the 21st century imagination that is saturated with videogames, reality television, and the looming disaster of an American economic meltdown. Lyric poetry does not admit works on economic collapse and the romance of the cell phone.
Lyric poetry is out of touch with modern life. Even as it focusses on micro details of that life, it provides an insulation between the reader and the reality. Modern Japanese tanka poets can write about being tear-gassed and arrested by the police, about menstruation and picking up young men half their age, but I have never seen those subjects in English-language poetry. Poets like Dave Bacharach and Andrew Riutta who can write about unpaid mortgages and prostitution do so through the lens of a gritty pastoralism remarkable both for speaking things rarely spoken in tanka and by speaking it through the lyric voice. They say ugly things with beautiful words.
I am as guilty as most and maybe more in my poetry. Lyricism suits my natural voice. I like the lyric world. I see beauty even in hardship. Yet I can't help feeling that I have accomplished a fundamental failure as a poet: I have soothed, instead of roused.
I have written works that are less lyric, more surreal, sharper, and darker. They don't get published. No, not even in Modern English Tanka, the most welcoming of them all. And so, after publishing one thousand tanka, instead of feeling successful, I feel disgruntled. I've felt this way before. More than a decade ago I wrote fiction. After working diligent and enjoying a certain amount of success in that field, I realized that editors were publishing certain sorts of things from me and declining others. The result was that a viewing of my published work gave a very biased view of who I was as a writer. I tried to break through, but couldn't. Editors publish what editors want to publish. I quit writing fiction rather than collude.
As the editor of Atlas Poetica , I have a bully pulpit from which to preach an alternate approach to tanka. It is bearing fruit. The first issue of tanka poetry of place provided an opportunity for poets to publish works which they loved and which readers also loved, but which lead in new directions. In the second issue, we covered new territory as poets began exploring and reporting on family and history, venturing to touch even larger topics, often through the means of tanka prose and tanka sequences that had few opportunities to be published elsewhere. Atlas Poetica was deliberately designed as a large format journal to accommodate such ventures.
Accordingly, I don't plan on going anywhere. Through the means at my disposal I will continue to advocate a larger, more complicated vision of tanka that expresses more of the myriad issues of our lives with innovation and skill. I encourage all poets to challenge themselves to go beyond the easy, the familiar, and the soothing, and I challenge all readers to open themselves to newness, change, and risk. Let tanka grow until it is more than lyric poetry, let it be the lyric of the real world.
~K~
Thursday, May 10, 2007
Lulu Delivers at Last
After seven months, Lulu.com is finally replacing defective books shipped with black ink on the spine during October - November 2006. Several individuals have let me know they received their replacement books, and I also received mine. Hopefully everybody who received the defective books has/will receive them.
One of my reader was quite surprised at what a difference the proper color made -- the gold really does stand out much better than the black. The cover colors -- background, text, image -- were coordinated and the black ink on the spine simply didn't fit. I labored a lot over Fire Pearls and spent a great deal of money to create the best book I could, so I was very unhappy when a Lulu error damaged that.
Hopefully there will be no further problems.
One of my reader was quite surprised at what a difference the proper color made -- the gold really does stand out much better than the black. The cover colors -- background, text, image -- were coordinated and the black ink on the spine simply didn't fit. I labored a lot over Fire Pearls and spent a great deal of money to create the best book I could, so I was very unhappy when a Lulu error damaged that.
Hopefully there will be no further problems.
Sunday, April 29, 2007
Lulu.com Doesn't Deliver
It's now been over a month since Lulu promised to send out replacement books, but nada. Zilch. Nothing. A big fat zero.
On the upside, one person that had not receive her order from Lulu finally received it. This was an order from Australia. The customer service manager told me that many Lulu shipments are lost in the international mail. I asked him point blank if international customers should order direct from Lulu, or should they order from Amazon.com. He said Amazon.com.
The rest of us who are waiting for replacement books haven't received them and haven't heard from Lulu. I doubt we ever will.
Lulu is the shoddiest out fit I have ever dealt with. I will never publish a book with them again.
~K~
On the upside, one person that had not receive her order from Lulu finally received it. This was an order from Australia. The customer service manager told me that many Lulu shipments are lost in the international mail. I asked him point blank if international customers should order direct from Lulu, or should they order from Amazon.com. He said Amazon.com.
The rest of us who are waiting for replacement books haven't received them and haven't heard from Lulu. I doubt we ever will.
Lulu is the shoddiest out fit I have ever dealt with. I will never publish a book with them again.
~K~
Monday, March 19, 2007
Lulu.com, Shoddy and Shady
After six months and a complaint to the Better Business Bureau, Lulu.com has still not resolved numerous problems, even when they said they would. Since endless emails and the intervention of the Better Business Bureau has failed to remedy the situation, I must resort to the only option left: public humiliation of the guilty party.
If you are considering using Lulu.com: DONT. They are a scam. I deeply a bitterly rue being captured by them.
My complaints . . .
In September their software failed to propagate the spine ink color properly, resulting in some number of books being printed with black ink on the spine. They kept telling me it was my fault, 'user error.' I had sussed out the system thoroughly by that point, so I knew it wasn't me -- I had made errors in learning to use the system, and I have no trouble paying for books that I had to redo due to my own mistakes, so I had it scoped out the system pretty damn well by then. The spine ink wasn't my error. In November in one of their updates they announced that they had fixed a bug that caused spine ink color to fail to propagate correctly. I contacted them about getting my books replaced, since they had admitted the error was with their software. I kept getting Customer Support people who insisted there was nothing wrong with the system and that it was my error -- even when I pointed them to the article for them to read themselves. Upshot, they refused to replace the defective books.
I filed a complaint with the Better Business Bureau. I got email in which Lulu representatives asked me to send digital pictures of the defective books. They said that once they had received proof of how many books were affected, they would replace them. I explained to them that only one that I received was defective, but that I had reports from several customers of the same problem. I contacted some of the customers I knew personally and they sent me digital pictures and personal statements about the defective books they had received. I forwarded them to Lulu. It is now six months later and _no one_ has received a replacement of the defective books. I have sent them numerous emails, and am hammering on them yet again about this, but frankly, if Lulu intended to make good this error they would have done it long ago.
However, I do note that their system software has been amended to fix this bug. The user interface has also been improved to make it easy to monitor the spine color yourself -- previously it was a hidden feature, so you didn't know the spine color wasn't right until you received the proof. So, I'm pleased that they have fixed the bug, but not pleased that they haven't replaced the defective books, in spite of endless emails and the intervention of the Better Business Bureau. I'm appalled that they didn't even offer to replace the books until after the BBB contacted them. And appalled that even now, still no replacements.
At the same time, back in September and into October, I had problems with their ordering system. For example, I discovered that their system did not always update in real time. Again, this is their software bug. When you buy global distribution, you have to buy a proof. You can avoid buying a proof, but it's very tricky, and if you're new to the system, you don't realize that it is possible to opt out. It should not be a secret. The site even tells you that you are 'required' to buy the proof, whether you're ready to buy or not. Anyhow, what happened is, I uploaded a revised version, purchased the proof as required, and got the OLD version. The proper revision was listed on the website and when I clicked on the pdf to preview what would be printed, it was the correct revision, but what got sent to the printer was the OLD version. There is no way to know that the printer got an old version until you receive the proof and realize, "Hey! this is the wrong one!" This happened twice, out of eight books.
Lulu refunded me for the first erroneous proof and updated my account to state 'REFUNDED.' However, the second erroneous proof a couple weeks later was not so listed. I queried them and they insisted that they had refunded my money for the second erroneous proof, but MyAccount did not say so. When I got my credit card statement I checked it and saw that they had indeed refunded it -- but they STILL haven't updated MyAccount. I am happy to have the refund, but I labor under the perverse expectation that MyAccount information will be correct and up to date, but it isn't. I've complained about this many times, and this was also included in my complaint to the BBB, but they never addressed it.
They also do not necessarily ship the correct number of books. One time when I ordered a proof, I received two books: one with the erroneous black ink on the spine, and one with the correct gold ink on the spine. Please note, I ordered _one_ book. I got two. The two were _different_. They only charged me for one, which is good, but again, I labor under the unreasonable expectation that the customer will receive the correct number of books ordered.
At first I was pleased because I assumed that some alert person at Lulu had noticed an error on my order and fixed it, but it turned out this was not the case. Lulu staff denied all knowledge of this and told me that there were no notes or anything on my record to indicate that anything special had happened. They had no explanation for why I got two books, one with black ink, and one with gold ink, when in point of fact I had ordered only one book (with gold ink on the spine). They insist their records show only one book printed and shipped.
I happen to teach computer science, so I was able to figure out exactly what was going wrong and where and did my best to give them a detailed error report so that they could track down the bug and fix it, but all they ever did was deny that there was a bug and insist that it was impossible for what I said to have happened. By this point, three out of eight books were printed wrong, so it's my personal opinion that they have a significant quality control problem that they really need to know about and fix, but they don't agree. Therefore, as far as I can tell, they have never fixed the problem in which their system occasionally does not update fast enough to send the most recent revision to the printer.
Ergo, when the author is buying proofs, they have the risk that they won't get their most recent revision. This won't effect the mass market sales because enough time will have elapsed between the upload and the sale that Lulu will have updated (the delay is apparently no more than about ten minutes), so, consumers won't be effected, but authors and editors -- who may have a schedule to meet -- will. Since it takes about a week to get a proof, the publisher must build in plenty of extra time to get a replacement in case he discovers the proof is erroneous.
The average publisher at Lulu is an amateur who doesn't know much about publishing, layouts, or computer software, so they are likely to either not notice the error, or to think it is their own mistake. In other words, Lulu is taking shameless advantage of niave people.
If this was not enough, Lulu has published my private information. In account preferences, it says, "This information is used privately by Lulu for billing, support and informational purposes, and is not publicly available." It lies. I have my legal name listed for billing information, as is proper. I expect to pay my bills. I have 'firepearls' as the username. I have 'M. Kei' as the public name. I have 'M. Kei' as the author name. Yet, this morning, when I posted to a forum, it listed my billing name. The Customer Support person tells me that it is supposed to list the 'username,' which in this case would be 'firepearls.' I have checked my account very carefully; I have my information set the way I want it set and it has been set as such for many months. This is an internal Lulu error, not my error.
Months back I complained because they published my billing name as the author name on my storefront, even though they say, as you read above, that they will not make public 'for any reason' the private information. I pointed out that there is good reason for a person to use a pen name and a long history of authors using pen names; if they are going to service authors they MUST accommodate pen names. To fail to do so is to fail to adhere to even minimal standards for the publishing business.
They have apparently partially fixed this -- the space for 'author name' and 'public name' have been added since I made that other complaint, but they have not updated their internal system to propagate the correct name to the reviews on storefronts and into the forums. Currently, it is still grabbing the private billing name, not the username or public name. Back in October when this first happened and I complained about it and asked for them to remove my private information and change it to my public pen name, they did not do so. And still haven't. This is a gross violation of my privacy and their own stated policy.
This morning I also noticed that the forum I posted in (Haiku and Tanka) has not updated to daylight savings time. There's really no excuse for that. The change to daylight savings time is a well known public fact. They should and could have prepared for the change, verified that it happened correctly, and fixed it if it didn't. It's been eight days since the new Daylight Savings Time went into effect. There's no excuse for not complying with the law.
I also attempted to find out if the Haiku and Tanka Forum has an active moderator or not, since actions I have taken, like asking my books to be listed on the Haiku and Tanka Group Page, hve not been acted on. I was advised that the only way to know if the moderator was active was to read the forum. I pointed out that the Moderator has never posted to the forum, and that in the past four months, there were only two posts, one in December, and mine, made today. He suggested that I post a request to the forum, asking to be made a Moderator. I asked him how long my requests should go unanswered before Lulu considered it an abandoned forum and appointed someone else to run it. He had no idea. I asked him what Lulu does about abandoned forums. He had no idea. I asked him if he could add my books to the Group Storefront. He said only the Moderator could do that.
I also pointed out to him that the Haiku and Tanka Forum is not listed on the index of forums on the Lulu site and asked what needed to be done to get it listed there. He said that only members of the group could see the forum. I pointed out that the only way to know the forum existed, was to know that the forum existed and use the search box to find it. It doesn't seem very useful to have a Group Storefront and forum that only members of the Group can view and use. I am trying to understand why some groups are indexed and some are not, but I have not yet figured out the forums at Lulu.
Their Customer Service is abysmal. Either they are nice people who know nothing and can't help, or they are irritating people with attitude. Or they recite the party line and deny that Lulu has any responsibility.
I realize that many people don't care about these things, but I and my colleagues are professionals. We care about making our books right. We want a printer that delivers the books exactly as we ordered them, keeps our accounts correct and up to date, and cheerfully and promptly fixes problems. Lulu isn't it.
I also know that I am not the only one who has had problems with them because some customers and poets have mentioned their own experiences to me. I have advised them to file complaints with the Better Business Bureau. If you received a defective copy of Fire Pearls with black ink on the spine, please let me know. If you have contacted Lulu about it, please let me know the response. If they have failed to deliver replacements for the defective books after you have notified them of the problem, please file a complaint with the Better Business Bureau at: https://odr.bbb.org/odrweb/public/GetStarted.aspx
~K~
If you are considering using Lulu.com: DONT. They are a scam. I deeply a bitterly rue being captured by them.
My complaints . . .
In September their software failed to propagate the spine ink color properly, resulting in some number of books being printed with black ink on the spine. They kept telling me it was my fault, 'user error.' I had sussed out the system thoroughly by that point, so I knew it wasn't me -- I had made errors in learning to use the system, and I have no trouble paying for books that I had to redo due to my own mistakes, so I had it scoped out the system pretty damn well by then. The spine ink wasn't my error. In November in one of their updates they announced that they had fixed a bug that caused spine ink color to fail to propagate correctly. I contacted them about getting my books replaced, since they had admitted the error was with their software. I kept getting Customer Support people who insisted there was nothing wrong with the system and that it was my error -- even when I pointed them to the article for them to read themselves. Upshot, they refused to replace the defective books.
I filed a complaint with the Better Business Bureau. I got email in which Lulu representatives asked me to send digital pictures of the defective books. They said that once they had received proof of how many books were affected, they would replace them. I explained to them that only one that I received was defective, but that I had reports from several customers of the same problem. I contacted some of the customers I knew personally and they sent me digital pictures and personal statements about the defective books they had received. I forwarded them to Lulu. It is now six months later and _no one_ has received a replacement of the defective books. I have sent them numerous emails, and am hammering on them yet again about this, but frankly, if Lulu intended to make good this error they would have done it long ago.
However, I do note that their system software has been amended to fix this bug. The user interface has also been improved to make it easy to monitor the spine color yourself -- previously it was a hidden feature, so you didn't know the spine color wasn't right until you received the proof. So, I'm pleased that they have fixed the bug, but not pleased that they haven't replaced the defective books, in spite of endless emails and the intervention of the Better Business Bureau. I'm appalled that they didn't even offer to replace the books until after the BBB contacted them. And appalled that even now, still no replacements.
At the same time, back in September and into October, I had problems with their ordering system. For example, I discovered that their system did not always update in real time. Again, this is their software bug. When you buy global distribution, you have to buy a proof. You can avoid buying a proof, but it's very tricky, and if you're new to the system, you don't realize that it is possible to opt out. It should not be a secret. The site even tells you that you are 'required' to buy the proof, whether you're ready to buy or not. Anyhow, what happened is, I uploaded a revised version, purchased the proof as required, and got the OLD version. The proper revision was listed on the website and when I clicked on the pdf to preview what would be printed, it was the correct revision, but what got sent to the printer was the OLD version. There is no way to know that the printer got an old version until you receive the proof and realize, "Hey! this is the wrong one!" This happened twice, out of eight books.
Lulu refunded me for the first erroneous proof and updated my account to state 'REFUNDED.' However, the second erroneous proof a couple weeks later was not so listed. I queried them and they insisted that they had refunded my money for the second erroneous proof, but MyAccount did not say so. When I got my credit card statement I checked it and saw that they had indeed refunded it -- but they STILL haven't updated MyAccount. I am happy to have the refund, but I labor under the perverse expectation that MyAccount information will be correct and up to date, but it isn't. I've complained about this many times, and this was also included in my complaint to the BBB, but they never addressed it.
They also do not necessarily ship the correct number of books. One time when I ordered a proof, I received two books: one with the erroneous black ink on the spine, and one with the correct gold ink on the spine. Please note, I ordered _one_ book. I got two. The two were _different_. They only charged me for one, which is good, but again, I labor under the unreasonable expectation that the customer will receive the correct number of books ordered.
At first I was pleased because I assumed that some alert person at Lulu had noticed an error on my order and fixed it, but it turned out this was not the case. Lulu staff denied all knowledge of this and told me that there were no notes or anything on my record to indicate that anything special had happened. They had no explanation for why I got two books, one with black ink, and one with gold ink, when in point of fact I had ordered only one book (with gold ink on the spine). They insist their records show only one book printed and shipped.
I happen to teach computer science, so I was able to figure out exactly what was going wrong and where and did my best to give them a detailed error report so that they could track down the bug and fix it, but all they ever did was deny that there was a bug and insist that it was impossible for what I said to have happened. By this point, three out of eight books were printed wrong, so it's my personal opinion that they have a significant quality control problem that they really need to know about and fix, but they don't agree. Therefore, as far as I can tell, they have never fixed the problem in which their system occasionally does not update fast enough to send the most recent revision to the printer.
Ergo, when the author is buying proofs, they have the risk that they won't get their most recent revision. This won't effect the mass market sales because enough time will have elapsed between the upload and the sale that Lulu will have updated (the delay is apparently no more than about ten minutes), so, consumers won't be effected, but authors and editors -- who may have a schedule to meet -- will. Since it takes about a week to get a proof, the publisher must build in plenty of extra time to get a replacement in case he discovers the proof is erroneous.
The average publisher at Lulu is an amateur who doesn't know much about publishing, layouts, or computer software, so they are likely to either not notice the error, or to think it is their own mistake. In other words, Lulu is taking shameless advantage of niave people.
If this was not enough, Lulu has published my private information. In account preferences, it says, "This information is used privately by Lulu for billing, support and informational purposes, and is not publicly available." It lies. I have my legal name listed for billing information, as is proper. I expect to pay my bills. I have 'firepearls' as the username. I have 'M. Kei' as the public name. I have 'M. Kei' as the author name. Yet, this morning, when I posted to a forum, it listed my billing name. The Customer Support person tells me that it is supposed to list the 'username,' which in this case would be 'firepearls.' I have checked my account very carefully; I have my information set the way I want it set and it has been set as such for many months. This is an internal Lulu error, not my error.
Months back I complained because they published my billing name as the author name on my storefront, even though they say, as you read above, that they will not make public 'for any reason' the private information. I pointed out that there is good reason for a person to use a pen name and a long history of authors using pen names; if they are going to service authors they MUST accommodate pen names. To fail to do so is to fail to adhere to even minimal standards for the publishing business.
They have apparently partially fixed this -- the space for 'author name' and 'public name' have been added since I made that other complaint, but they have not updated their internal system to propagate the correct name to the reviews on storefronts and into the forums. Currently, it is still grabbing the private billing name, not the username or public name. Back in October when this first happened and I complained about it and asked for them to remove my private information and change it to my public pen name, they did not do so. And still haven't. This is a gross violation of my privacy and their own stated policy.
This morning I also noticed that the forum I posted in (Haiku and Tanka) has not updated to daylight savings time. There's really no excuse for that. The change to daylight savings time is a well known public fact. They should and could have prepared for the change, verified that it happened correctly, and fixed it if it didn't. It's been eight days since the new Daylight Savings Time went into effect. There's no excuse for not complying with the law.
I also attempted to find out if the Haiku and Tanka Forum has an active moderator or not, since actions I have taken, like asking my books to be listed on the Haiku and Tanka Group Page, hve not been acted on. I was advised that the only way to know if the moderator was active was to read the forum. I pointed out that the Moderator has never posted to the forum, and that in the past four months, there were only two posts, one in December, and mine, made today. He suggested that I post a request to the forum, asking to be made a Moderator. I asked him how long my requests should go unanswered before Lulu considered it an abandoned forum and appointed someone else to run it. He had no idea. I asked him what Lulu does about abandoned forums. He had no idea. I asked him if he could add my books to the Group Storefront. He said only the Moderator could do that.
I also pointed out to him that the Haiku and Tanka Forum is not listed on the index of forums on the Lulu site and asked what needed to be done to get it listed there. He said that only members of the group could see the forum. I pointed out that the only way to know the forum existed, was to know that the forum existed and use the search box to find it. It doesn't seem very useful to have a Group Storefront and forum that only members of the Group can view and use. I am trying to understand why some groups are indexed and some are not, but I have not yet figured out the forums at Lulu.
Their Customer Service is abysmal. Either they are nice people who know nothing and can't help, or they are irritating people with attitude. Or they recite the party line and deny that Lulu has any responsibility.
I realize that many people don't care about these things, but I and my colleagues are professionals. We care about making our books right. We want a printer that delivers the books exactly as we ordered them, keeps our accounts correct and up to date, and cheerfully and promptly fixes problems. Lulu isn't it.
I also know that I am not the only one who has had problems with them because some customers and poets have mentioned their own experiences to me. I have advised them to file complaints with the Better Business Bureau. If you received a defective copy of Fire Pearls with black ink on the spine, please let me know. If you have contacted Lulu about it, please let me know the response. If they have failed to deliver replacements for the defective books after you have notified them of the problem, please file a complaint with the Better Business Bureau at: https://odr.bbb.org/odrweb/public/GetStarted.aspx
~K~
Friday, February 09, 2007
Valentine Coffeehouse
Last night Abigail Greene and I read poetry at the Valentine Coffeehouse at Cecil Community College. Unfortunately, Denis Garrison was not able to attend due to medical reasons. Our reading was jointly sponsored by the Veterans Memorial Library and Alpha Alpha Theta, the honor society.
Decorations and food were lovely. Beads and hearts and electric candles were used. Food was a chocolate fountain with fruit for dipping, along with vegetables, hummus, candy and cupcakes. Coffee was served. Bouquets of fresh roses decorated the buffet. It was quite lovely; they really made the poets feel valued.
Turnout was light. There was no reporter from the local paper, although I tried to get one. We did appear in the 'Accent' section of the paper on two days though. Although small, the audience was appreciative and intimate. None of the people there had previously been familiar with tanka but came because of my affiliation with the college. They enjoyed it, and some have become very interested.
I began by speaking a little bit about tanka and its history and form, then Abigail and I took turns reading poems from the book, both our own and other poets, some from each of the seasons. Occasionally we spoke a little about the poems. Upon reflection, we should have spoken more, which would have 'cleared the palate' so to speak between poems. Live and learn.
Afterwards audience members asked questions about tanka and particular poems. We enjoyed refreshments and had small group discussions. There was an openly gay man in the audience, so I pointed out some of the poems in the book that I thought would appeal to him.
One of the college organizers was very interested in my description of my forthcoming book, Heron Sea, Short Poems of the Chesapeake Bay. Phi Theta Kappa, the international honor society of the two year college, has selected environmentalism as the current study topic. They asked me if I would be willing to participate in some sort of 'green' event with the book. Of course I said yes.
Heron Sea has been taking a back seat to many other things, but I have now given myself a deadline of Earth Day to get it finished and in print. I have been working on it off and on, so it is moving forward, but I find it much harder to edit myself than others. When completed, it will be available along side 'Fire Pearls' at www.lulu.com/firepearls.
Decorations and food were lovely. Beads and hearts and electric candles were used. Food was a chocolate fountain with fruit for dipping, along with vegetables, hummus, candy and cupcakes. Coffee was served. Bouquets of fresh roses decorated the buffet. It was quite lovely; they really made the poets feel valued.
Turnout was light. There was no reporter from the local paper, although I tried to get one. We did appear in the 'Accent' section of the paper on two days though. Although small, the audience was appreciative and intimate. None of the people there had previously been familiar with tanka but came because of my affiliation with the college. They enjoyed it, and some have become very interested.
I began by speaking a little bit about tanka and its history and form, then Abigail and I took turns reading poems from the book, both our own and other poets, some from each of the seasons. Occasionally we spoke a little about the poems. Upon reflection, we should have spoken more, which would have 'cleared the palate' so to speak between poems. Live and learn.
Afterwards audience members asked questions about tanka and particular poems. We enjoyed refreshments and had small group discussions. There was an openly gay man in the audience, so I pointed out some of the poems in the book that I thought would appeal to him.
One of the college organizers was very interested in my description of my forthcoming book, Heron Sea, Short Poems of the Chesapeake Bay. Phi Theta Kappa, the international honor society of the two year college, has selected environmentalism as the current study topic. They asked me if I would be willing to participate in some sort of 'green' event with the book. Of course I said yes.
Heron Sea has been taking a back seat to many other things, but I have now given myself a deadline of Earth Day to get it finished and in print. I have been working on it off and on, so it is moving forward, but I find it much harder to edit myself than others. When completed, it will be available along side 'Fire Pearls' at www.lulu.com/firepearls.
Sunday, February 04, 2007
Fire Pearls Interview at Lulu.com
I was interviewed and Fire Pearls was featured in the Lulu.com newsletter. It was a good one. To read it, visit: http://people.lulu.com/blogs/send_post.php?post_id=28895
~K~
~K~
Monday, December 18, 2006
Fire Pearls - Errata
Fire Pearls was a large and complex project, and like all such projects, is slowly accumulating errata.
All instances of bottle rockets should have been lower case, not Upper Case.
Robert Wilson's poem 'explore with me' was previously accepted for publication in Wisteria.
My guidelines required all previously published poems to include information on prior publication so that they could be properly acknowledged. In all cases when the poet provided the information to me, the necessary credit appeared. Several poets included previously published material without acknowledgement, and these have been handled on a case by case basis as necessary to satisfy the previous publisher.
As I ranted in a previous post, I am disimpressed with poets who fail to follow published guidelines and disrespect me and their prior publisher by failing to provide proper acknowledgement. It's unprofessional and unacceptable.
~K~
All instances of bottle rockets should have been lower case, not Upper Case.
Robert Wilson's poem 'explore with me' was previously accepted for publication in Wisteria.
My guidelines required all previously published poems to include information on prior publication so that they could be properly acknowledged. In all cases when the poet provided the information to me, the necessary credit appeared. Several poets included previously published material without acknowledgement, and these have been handled on a case by case basis as necessary to satisfy the previous publisher.
As I ranted in a previous post, I am disimpressed with poets who fail to follow published guidelines and disrespect me and their prior publisher by failing to provide proper acknowledgement. It's unprofessional and unacceptable.
~K~
Thursday, December 07, 2006
Fire Pearls Marketing Efforts
Work on Fire Pearls: Short Masterpieces of the Human Heart continues. For those of you who think that publishing a book is hard work, wait until you try marketing one! Nonetheless, progress is being made.
Upcoming: Fire Pearls will be featured as a Valentine's Day tie-in for the Lulu.com newsletter. Fire Pearls will also be featured at a Valentine's Day Coffeehouse at Cecil Community College, North East, MD, also as a Valentine's Day tie-in, complete with chocolate and flowers. I have also submitted the pdf to Amazon.com to be processed for their 'Search Inside the Book' program. This allows an excerpt of the book to be read online by a prospective buyer. I have faith that the quality of poetry is such that should a reader read it, they will want to buy it!
I am also working on getting review copies out. This requires proofreading and personalizing the press releases as I am including them with the review copies. I have made splash sheets to go with them saying 'LOCAL AUTHOR' and "GREAT TIE-IN" with listings of upcoming relevant observances, including Valentine's Day, Poetry Month, Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, Mother's Day, and June Weddings. I'm a little disappointed that Fire Pearls seems to be getting pegged as a Valentine's Day product by mainstream media, but I suppose it's better to be seen at Valentine's Day than not seen at all. I remain confident that should the book come to reader's attention, it will interest them.
Due to the individual attention I am providing the review copies, and due to the fact that I work fulltime (and sometimes more), plus serve on the board of a directors of a local museum during a Capital Campaign, I don't have as much time as I would like. Still, every week I do something to get Fire Pearls noticed in the world. Oftentimes what I do results in email and mail going into the great round file in the sky, but I do it. This is the kind of thing where persistance pays off. Frankly, if only 5% of the effort results in something tangible, that's still pretty good. All it takes is one Oprah to notice the book...
Yes, I've submitted my 'suggestion' to Oprah's Book Club. Haven't heard back and don't think I will... but you have to try. It's their job to reject my efforts, not mine. This is something that many people don't understand. They think that you should try to guess in advance if you're going to be successful, and if you think you won't be, don't even bother trying. If you don't try, you won't succeed. I think it was Edison who said he learned more from his failures than his successes.
Marketing a small press book is no easy thing, and poetry is a notoriously hard sell. Tanka especially so. Currently, if a book of tanka sells 300 copies, it's a hit. My goal is to sell a 1000 copies of Fire Pearls . If I recall correctly, the initial print-run on Goldstein and Shinoda's translation of Tangled Hair was only 1200 copies, and it's been in print since then and is now considered a classic. I hope for something similar for Fire Pearls .
Having gotten my hands on most of the anthologies of English-language tanka published in the last one hundred years, I can say that Fire Pearls compares well. I have even laid hands on hard to find books such as Maple (1975). I haven't gotten hold of all the anthologies; several still elude me (see previous books wanted post), but I do have about 3/4 of the English-language anthologies ever published in my possession. Expect to see future articles derived from this research!
~K~
Upcoming: Fire Pearls will be featured as a Valentine's Day tie-in for the Lulu.com newsletter. Fire Pearls will also be featured at a Valentine's Day Coffeehouse at Cecil Community College, North East, MD, also as a Valentine's Day tie-in, complete with chocolate and flowers. I have also submitted the pdf to Amazon.com to be processed for their 'Search Inside the Book' program. This allows an excerpt of the book to be read online by a prospective buyer. I have faith that the quality of poetry is such that should a reader read it, they will want to buy it!
I am also working on getting review copies out. This requires proofreading and personalizing the press releases as I am including them with the review copies. I have made splash sheets to go with them saying 'LOCAL AUTHOR' and "GREAT TIE-IN" with listings of upcoming relevant observances, including Valentine's Day, Poetry Month, Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, Mother's Day, and June Weddings. I'm a little disappointed that Fire Pearls seems to be getting pegged as a Valentine's Day product by mainstream media, but I suppose it's better to be seen at Valentine's Day than not seen at all. I remain confident that should the book come to reader's attention, it will interest them.
Due to the individual attention I am providing the review copies, and due to the fact that I work fulltime (and sometimes more), plus serve on the board of a directors of a local museum during a Capital Campaign, I don't have as much time as I would like. Still, every week I do something to get Fire Pearls noticed in the world. Oftentimes what I do results in email and mail going into the great round file in the sky, but I do it. This is the kind of thing where persistance pays off. Frankly, if only 5% of the effort results in something tangible, that's still pretty good. All it takes is one Oprah to notice the book...
Yes, I've submitted my 'suggestion' to Oprah's Book Club. Haven't heard back and don't think I will... but you have to try. It's their job to reject my efforts, not mine. This is something that many people don't understand. They think that you should try to guess in advance if you're going to be successful, and if you think you won't be, don't even bother trying. If you don't try, you won't succeed. I think it was Edison who said he learned more from his failures than his successes.
Marketing a small press book is no easy thing, and poetry is a notoriously hard sell. Tanka especially so. Currently, if a book of tanka sells 300 copies, it's a hit. My goal is to sell a 1000 copies of Fire Pearls . If I recall correctly, the initial print-run on Goldstein and Shinoda's translation of Tangled Hair was only 1200 copies, and it's been in print since then and is now considered a classic. I hope for something similar for Fire Pearls .
Having gotten my hands on most of the anthologies of English-language tanka published in the last one hundred years, I can say that Fire Pearls compares well. I have even laid hands on hard to find books such as Maple (1975). I haven't gotten hold of all the anthologies; several still elude me (see previous books wanted post), but I do have about 3/4 of the English-language anthologies ever published in my possession. Expect to see future articles derived from this research!
~K~
Tuesday, October 24, 2006
Fire Pearls *****
At last! Fire Pearls: Short Masterpieces of the Human Heart is complete and ready for sale. I'm well pleased with the way it turned out, although I cannot say that I am happy with the Lulu.com global distribution system. Errors on their part caused delays and frustration and expense on my part. Still, it is done at last, and the book is out and selling. So far reviews left on the site are excellent with an average five star rating (*****). Even my daughter, the teenage skeptic, says it's pretty cool.
~K~
~K~
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
.
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
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
Sunday, September 10, 2006
Fire Pearls nears completion
Fire Pearls: Short Masterpieces of the Human Heart , is nearly done. The final selections have been made, the manuscript has been laid out, the covers designed, and the poets are proofing their work even as we speak. A couple of more days to the deadline for corrections, then bam! The galleyproof, and should it be good, we go on sale. Fire Pearls should be available to the public in about two weeks.
It has been a pleasure to work with so much fine poetry and many good poets. I am gratified by the poets' responses -- most of them have not merely proofed their own work, but have read the book cover to cover and send me their glowing responses. Tom Clausen was kind enough to give me permission to quote him:
“Holy Tanka !!! what a magnificent anthology... I just read from cover to cover and it weakens, heartens, humbles, enlarges, and delivers so many poetic truths that I just am so glad to see this come to fruition. Congratulations.”
I am also very gratified by the kind and unflagging support of the grand old man of tanka, Sanford Golstein. Sandy has provided the blurb for the back cover:
“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 anthology, edited by M. Kei, focuses on love and passion, subjects which the poets in the anthologyare not hesitant about. The last section, entitled 'Fifth Season,' is a tour de force. Editor Kei can be cited among those editors who really care about their contributors and make frequent contact with them. To journey through this anthology is to experience key moments in our lives.”
Several poets, including very well known and highly respected poets with long careers, have commented on the innovation of the 'fifth season.' Tanka often utilize nature imagery, and so much of the work fell very neatly into categories of spring, summer, autumn, and winter. But the human heart is a capricious thing and often refuses to follow our demands. The Fifth Season was added to present those poems which, like the human heart, cannot be easily categorized.
With just shy of eighty poems in each of five sections, Fire Pearls comes in at 389 poems -- which is like editing four books at once, given that tanka books are usually slim. More than that, each section is sequenced by theme and logical progressions, which is a huge undertaking. I have been bored and annoyed by the usual method of presenting tanka alphabetically by author's last name. What if the author write wildly varying stuff that doesn't really go together? Plus such a work itself has no cohesion; it is simply random assembly of poems by the rather arbitrary standard of last names.
On the other hand, sequencing close to 400 poems is no small undertaking. Sequences of this size have rarely, if ever, been undertaken in English-language tanka, although Japanese tanka anthologies are often sequenced. Sequencing is one of the most ancient skills associated with editorship in Japan; the old imperial anthologies are organized by topic and sequenced within their topics -- even the 4500 poems of the Man'yoshu.
One of the things that makes the Kokinshu a classic is that it is an imminently readable anthology, thanks to the care that went into its organization. This is not fully understood by most people who discuss it; while the Kokinshu is justly criticized for its mannerism, its mannerism is partially a result of the choices made in putting together a readable anthology. Poems that are wildly different than other poems are hard to sequence and may be omitted. Regretably, there were some very good poems I wanted to publish in Fire Pearls , but they just didn't fit. That's the drawback of sequencing, it imposes choices which may exclude some poems.
While I regret not being able to publish all the excellent poems that were submitted to me, every editor faces the same conundrum. It is not that the book is sequenced that caused some good poems to be left out, it is that the budget will only tolerate a book of a certain size. My hope from the start is that Fire Pearls would prove itself a viable approach and inspire other authors to experiment with sequencing and anthology building. These are two skills that are in short supply but are essential to the development of the genre. I am sure there are people who will find fault with what I have done, but I am not shy, and I hope that people will be inspired to edit more anthologies according to their own views -- we need more books representing more viewpoints.
Already I have influenced two major editors, who shall remain nameless since their projects are not yet ready for public inspection. Suffice it to say, Fire Pearls has convinced others that the approach is viable and flexible enough to be adapted to individual editor's approaches. Cross your fingers and look for more anthologies.
~K~
It has been a pleasure to work with so much fine poetry and many good poets. I am gratified by the poets' responses -- most of them have not merely proofed their own work, but have read the book cover to cover and send me their glowing responses. Tom Clausen was kind enough to give me permission to quote him:
“Holy Tanka !!! what a magnificent anthology... I just read from cover to cover and it weakens, heartens, humbles, enlarges, and delivers so many poetic truths that I just am so glad to see this come to fruition. Congratulations.”
I am also very gratified by the kind and unflagging support of the grand old man of tanka, Sanford Golstein. Sandy has provided the blurb for the back cover:
“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 anthology, edited by M. Kei, focuses on love and passion, subjects which the poets in the anthologyare not hesitant about. The last section, entitled 'Fifth Season,' is a tour de force. Editor Kei can be cited among those editors who really care about their contributors and make frequent contact with them. To journey through this anthology is to experience key moments in our lives.”
Several poets, including very well known and highly respected poets with long careers, have commented on the innovation of the 'fifth season.' Tanka often utilize nature imagery, and so much of the work fell very neatly into categories of spring, summer, autumn, and winter. But the human heart is a capricious thing and often refuses to follow our demands. The Fifth Season was added to present those poems which, like the human heart, cannot be easily categorized.
With just shy of eighty poems in each of five sections, Fire Pearls comes in at 389 poems -- which is like editing four books at once, given that tanka books are usually slim. More than that, each section is sequenced by theme and logical progressions, which is a huge undertaking. I have been bored and annoyed by the usual method of presenting tanka alphabetically by author's last name. What if the author write wildly varying stuff that doesn't really go together? Plus such a work itself has no cohesion; it is simply random assembly of poems by the rather arbitrary standard of last names.
On the other hand, sequencing close to 400 poems is no small undertaking. Sequences of this size have rarely, if ever, been undertaken in English-language tanka, although Japanese tanka anthologies are often sequenced. Sequencing is one of the most ancient skills associated with editorship in Japan; the old imperial anthologies are organized by topic and sequenced within their topics -- even the 4500 poems of the Man'yoshu.
One of the things that makes the Kokinshu a classic is that it is an imminently readable anthology, thanks to the care that went into its organization. This is not fully understood by most people who discuss it; while the Kokinshu is justly criticized for its mannerism, its mannerism is partially a result of the choices made in putting together a readable anthology. Poems that are wildly different than other poems are hard to sequence and may be omitted. Regretably, there were some very good poems I wanted to publish in Fire Pearls , but they just didn't fit. That's the drawback of sequencing, it imposes choices which may exclude some poems.
While I regret not being able to publish all the excellent poems that were submitted to me, every editor faces the same conundrum. It is not that the book is sequenced that caused some good poems to be left out, it is that the budget will only tolerate a book of a certain size. My hope from the start is that Fire Pearls would prove itself a viable approach and inspire other authors to experiment with sequencing and anthology building. These are two skills that are in short supply but are essential to the development of the genre. I am sure there are people who will find fault with what I have done, but I am not shy, and I hope that people will be inspired to edit more anthologies according to their own views -- we need more books representing more viewpoints.
Already I have influenced two major editors, who shall remain nameless since their projects are not yet ready for public inspection. Suffice it to say, Fire Pearls has convinced others that the approach is viable and flexible enough to be adapted to individual editor's approaches. Cross your fingers and look for more anthologies.
~K~
Sunday, August 20, 2006
Ships and Poetry
10 more days to the deadline for Fire Pearls. I hope I don't get a bunch of last minute submissions, but if they do, I hope they're fabuolous. Cutting has been difficult. So much good stuff has been sent that I'm well over the original plan for 300 poems. Nonetheless, all poets have been advised regarding their first cuts, and the draft is in good shape.
Due to the amount of time it takes a new book to work its way into the distribution channels, I want to have the manuscript in the printer's hands as quickly after the deadline as possible. I put in about thirty hours this weekend on the book, and the draft has been sent a dear friend who is a Very Famous Tanka Poet to read and write the cover blurb.
It's also important to get as much done now as possible as I have a job interview with an historic wooden ship whose name I won't mention. I'm dissatisfied with my current job, so I sent out feelers last week to see if any of the regional marine museums and historic sailing ships have jobs available. And lo, one does! So on Tuesday I go for an interview. I am crossing my fingers and hoping it works out. If it does, I'll be commuting much further, working longer hours, earning more, and having to learn a new job -- right at the Fire Pearls deadline.
Which is my why I busted my butt this weekend to see that Fire Pearls is shipshape. I don't miss deadlines and I don't do sloppy work. I plan ahead and get things done in advance and allow for contigencies. While this is the first poetry book I've done, I have previous experience as a small press and alternative press editor. I've published more than a dozen books and chapbooks. All is good.
Due to the amount of time it takes a new book to work its way into the distribution channels, I want to have the manuscript in the printer's hands as quickly after the deadline as possible. I put in about thirty hours this weekend on the book, and the draft has been sent a dear friend who is a Very Famous Tanka Poet to read and write the cover blurb.
It's also important to get as much done now as possible as I have a job interview with an historic wooden ship whose name I won't mention. I'm dissatisfied with my current job, so I sent out feelers last week to see if any of the regional marine museums and historic sailing ships have jobs available. And lo, one does! So on Tuesday I go for an interview. I am crossing my fingers and hoping it works out. If it does, I'll be commuting much further, working longer hours, earning more, and having to learn a new job -- right at the Fire Pearls deadline.
Which is my why I busted my butt this weekend to see that Fire Pearls is shipshape. I don't miss deadlines and I don't do sloppy work. I plan ahead and get things done in advance and allow for contigencies. While this is the first poetry book I've done, I have previous experience as a small press and alternative press editor. I've published more than a dozen books and chapbooks. All is good.
Tuesday, August 08, 2006
Love Tanka
Since I am editing Fire Pearls: Short Masterpieces of the Human Heart, it might logically be asked whether I know anything about writing love poetry. I like to think that I do -- I started writing tanka to impress a woman. It worked. And, after further scientific analysis, purely for the altruistic reason of enhancing our understanding of tanka, I can also announce that it works on men as well.
In fact, I used to never think of publishing my poetry, but in 2004 when my friends started asking me if I'd written any more poetry, and listening to it dreamy-eyed, then beating up their boyfriends for not writing them love poetry, I was forced to conclude that maybe I had something. Normally sane people flee the other way when they see an amateur poet coming.
Nonetheless, we must remember that Fire Pearls is not just love poetry, it is about the passions of the human heart, which may resemble love, but is actually a much larger field.
The following tanka are provided with dates so that you can trace the development of my style, if you have any interest in that sort of thing. Or you can just read the poems and enjoy, or laugh and point. It's all the same to me. They're a tiny fraction of my output of love poetry; the really good romantic ones are all committed to Fire Pearls.
I was not lonely
with the snow-capped heron
as my company;
but when my lover returned
the silence was desolate.
~K~ 2001
Previously appeared in SimplyHaiku.com, Summer, 2006.
The evening ocean
reflects silver moonshine like
a polished mirror.
The boat that rowed out early
this morning has not returned.
~K~ 2004
The boat above is Mansei's boat, in one of the oldest and best know of Japanese verses. His boat has been rowing through Japanese poetry for as long as Japanese poetry has been written down. When we are beginning, slavish imitation and derivation is good practice. Do what the masters did until you understand them, then throw away the rules and do as your poetry dictates.
yo no naka o
nani ni tatoemu
asabiraki
kogiinishi fune no
ato naki ga goto
~Sami Mansei
Our life in this world--
to what shall I compare it?
It is like a boat
rowing out at break of day,
leaving not a trace behind.
~trans. Steven D. Carter, Traditional Japanese Poetry
Cinnamon mornings
follow silk moons of August.
Styrofoam tea sits
quietly at my elbow,
teasing with remembered taste.
~K~ 2003
Previously appeared in My Town , 2006.
When my boys are here
the autumn nights fly past like
swallows in the dusk.
Autumn nights are long
only by repute.
~K~ 2003
Previously appeared in SimplyHaiku.com, Summer, 2006.
A pearl of rain
trembles at the tip
of a holly leaf.
She passes by,
and my heart falls.
~K~ 2005
Bemused,
he discovers his new book
belonged to someone else;
love messages
inside the cover.
~K~ Jan, 2006
My sister grieves
over her own gold star;
so I dread the blue one
my daughter seems determined
to give to me.
~K~ Feb 2006
NB. During WWI, Sons in Service flags were displayed in the windows of families with service members serving. One blue star was placed for each family member on active duty. If the service member died, the star was changed to blue. My nephew, SFC Joshua Lee Omvig, committed suicide after his tour in Iraq due to untreated Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. His brother still serves. The men and women of our family have served in every war since the French and Indian War.
Beside the road,
only the hawk’s tail recognizable
amid the shattered feathers;
I say another prayer
for our fallen soldier.
~K~ Apr 2006
I’d sleep
if sleep were safe,
but I fear
the ruin
of my dreams.
~K~ Jun 2006
A single boot
tossed casually aside,
suddenly I remember
how long it has been
since I heard from her.
~K~ Jun 2006
Her going
is a bright loss
from which I
will never
recover.
~K~ Jun 2006
The sternest mountain
crumbles into dust and
washes to the sea;
it forms a sandy beach
where my love walks.
~K~ Jun 2006
if you came
(but you didn’t)
if you had come
(but still you won’t)
maybe...
~K~ Jul 2006
coitus interuptus --
suddenly I realize
my dead mother
can see me
having sex
~K~ Aug 2006
Ah yes. It's a long way from Mansei's boat to coitus interruptus, but logically, if you believe in the afterlife, whether it be Buddhist or something else, then we must also conclude that the living have no privacy from the dead. It's enough to make an atheist of any man. Since I happen to be a person of faith, it's a real conundrum. I just hope she skips over those parts of my life the same way she skipped over sex scenes in the novels.
In fact, I used to never think of publishing my poetry, but in 2004 when my friends started asking me if I'd written any more poetry, and listening to it dreamy-eyed, then beating up their boyfriends for not writing them love poetry, I was forced to conclude that maybe I had something. Normally sane people flee the other way when they see an amateur poet coming.
Nonetheless, we must remember that Fire Pearls is not just love poetry, it is about the passions of the human heart, which may resemble love, but is actually a much larger field.
The following tanka are provided with dates so that you can trace the development of my style, if you have any interest in that sort of thing. Or you can just read the poems and enjoy, or laugh and point. It's all the same to me. They're a tiny fraction of my output of love poetry; the really good romantic ones are all committed to Fire Pearls.
I was not lonely
with the snow-capped heron
as my company;
but when my lover returned
the silence was desolate.
~K~ 2001
Previously appeared in SimplyHaiku.com, Summer, 2006.
The evening ocean
reflects silver moonshine like
a polished mirror.
The boat that rowed out early
this morning has not returned.
~K~ 2004
The boat above is Mansei's boat, in one of the oldest and best know of Japanese verses. His boat has been rowing through Japanese poetry for as long as Japanese poetry has been written down. When we are beginning, slavish imitation and derivation is good practice. Do what the masters did until you understand them, then throw away the rules and do as your poetry dictates.
yo no naka o
nani ni tatoemu
asabiraki
kogiinishi fune no
ato naki ga goto
~Sami Mansei
Our life in this world--
to what shall I compare it?
It is like a boat
rowing out at break of day,
leaving not a trace behind.
~trans. Steven D. Carter, Traditional Japanese Poetry
Cinnamon mornings
follow silk moons of August.
Styrofoam tea sits
quietly at my elbow,
teasing with remembered taste.
~K~ 2003
Previously appeared in My Town , 2006.
When my boys are here
the autumn nights fly past like
swallows in the dusk.
Autumn nights are long
only by repute.
~K~ 2003
Previously appeared in SimplyHaiku.com, Summer, 2006.
A pearl of rain
trembles at the tip
of a holly leaf.
She passes by,
and my heart falls.
~K~ 2005
Bemused,
he discovers his new book
belonged to someone else;
love messages
inside the cover.
~K~ Jan, 2006
My sister grieves
over her own gold star;
so I dread the blue one
my daughter seems determined
to give to me.
~K~ Feb 2006
NB. During WWI, Sons in Service flags were displayed in the windows of families with service members serving. One blue star was placed for each family member on active duty. If the service member died, the star was changed to blue. My nephew, SFC Joshua Lee Omvig, committed suicide after his tour in Iraq due to untreated Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. His brother still serves. The men and women of our family have served in every war since the French and Indian War.
Beside the road,
only the hawk’s tail recognizable
amid the shattered feathers;
I say another prayer
for our fallen soldier.
~K~ Apr 2006
I’d sleep
if sleep were safe,
but I fear
the ruin
of my dreams.
~K~ Jun 2006
A single boot
tossed casually aside,
suddenly I remember
how long it has been
since I heard from her.
~K~ Jun 2006
Her going
is a bright loss
from which I
will never
recover.
~K~ Jun 2006
The sternest mountain
crumbles into dust and
washes to the sea;
it forms a sandy beach
where my love walks.
~K~ Jun 2006
if you came
(but you didn’t)
if you had come
(but still you won’t)
maybe...
~K~ Jul 2006
coitus interuptus --
suddenly I realize
my dead mother
can see me
having sex
~K~ Aug 2006
Ah yes. It's a long way from Mansei's boat to coitus interruptus, but logically, if you believe in the afterlife, whether it be Buddhist or something else, then we must also conclude that the living have no privacy from the dead. It's enough to make an atheist of any man. Since I happen to be a person of faith, it's a real conundrum. I just hope she skips over those parts of my life the same way she skipped over sex scenes in the novels.
Saturday, June 10, 2006
Tanka Poets Announce New Publishing Venture
9 June 2006
Tanka Poets Announce New Publishing Venture
Poets M. Kei, Michael McClintock, and Denis M. Garrison today announced the formation of ~Seamark~, a publishing venture ‘For Poets, by Poets.’ McClintock, well-known in the English-speaking world as one of the foremost tanka poets of the day, is also a co-editor of The Tanka Anthology and President of the Tanka Society of America. Garrison, a poet and the well-known editor of Haiku Harvest and several other poetry journals, recently established a new journal, the 3 x 5 Poetry Review. M. Kei is a young tanka poet and editor who is the Moderator for Kyoka Mad Poems. The new anthology from Seamark is his brainchild. All three poets will continue their established associations and responsibilities as well as taking on the duties of running the new publishing house.
Seamark’s first project is Fire Pearls: Short Masterpieces of Love and Passion. A call for submissions will be made later this summer. Poets should not submit until the call is made as the editors are very busy finalizing plans for the new anthology. Submissions made before the opening date will not be read.
For more information, visit the web site at: firepearls.com
Tanka Poets Announce New Publishing Venture
Poets M. Kei, Michael McClintock, and Denis M. Garrison today announced the formation of ~Seamark~, a publishing venture ‘For Poets, by Poets.’ McClintock, well-known in the English-speaking world as one of the foremost tanka poets of the day, is also a co-editor of The Tanka Anthology and President of the Tanka Society of America. Garrison, a poet and the well-known editor of Haiku Harvest and several other poetry journals, recently established a new journal, the 3 x 5 Poetry Review. M. Kei is a young tanka poet and editor who is the Moderator for Kyoka Mad Poems. The new anthology from Seamark is his brainchild. All three poets will continue their established associations and responsibilities as well as taking on the duties of running the new publishing house.
Seamark’s first project is Fire Pearls: Short Masterpieces of Love and Passion. A call for submissions will be made later this summer. Poets should not submit until the call is made as the editors are very busy finalizing plans for the new anthology. Submissions made before the opening date will not be read.
For more information, visit the web site at: firepearls.com
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)