Available now in North American via Ahadada Books and Small Press Distribution, Late Poems of Lu You: The Old Man Who Does As He Pleases is now available from IMC Books, as well (our Japanese distributor).

Burton Watson...possesses all the qualities which distinguish a master translator. As a craftsman and a poet, he has inspired and challenged two generations."-Asian Affairs

"A new translation of any of the classics...from the hand of Burton Watson is an event to be welcomed with gratitude."-Journal of Asian Studies

"Burton Watson is the finest, most consistent, most generous translator of Chinese literature of this century."-Gary Snyder

Lu You (1125-1210) whose pen name was ‘The Old Man Who Does as He Pleases,' was among the most prolific of Chinese poets, having left behind a collection of close to ten thousand poems as well as miscellaneous prose writings. His poetry, often characterized by an intense patriotism, is also notable for its recurrent expression of a carefree enjoyment of life.

This volume consists of twenty-five of Burton Watson's new translations, plus Lu You's poems as they appear in the original, making this a perfect collection for the lay reader as well as for those with a mastery of Song dynasty Chinese.

In addition to poems, Burton Watson includes English translations of excerpts from La You's famous Ra Draii (Diary of a Trip to Shu), written in 1170, which describes his experiences on a journey he took to assume the duties of vice governor in the province of Kuizhou.

Burton Watson is a distinguished translator from the Chinese and Japanese. He has written or translated many books and is published largely by Columbia University Press. Ahadada Books is proud to present the latest of Mr. Watson's publications.

Masako's Story; Surviving the Atomic Bombing of Hiroshima
by Kikuko Otake
Ahadada Books, 96 pages,
Perfect bound Paperback, $12.50
ISBN 978-0-9781414-6-2
Soon to be available from SPD.

For a downloadable PDF of this Press Release, click here.

On August 6, 1945, when the world's first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, the Furuta family was living one mile away from the hypocenter. Five year old Kikuko, her mother, Masako, and her two brothers barely escaped with their lives. However, their soldier father was not so fortunate. Masakonever talked about her family's experiences on that day and the grim days following the bombing. Then one day, Masako started to talk about what happened-breaking a silence of nearly fifty years.

Written by Kikuko (Furuta) Otake, now an assistant professor of Japanese in the United States, Masako's story is a bilingual collection of prose-poetry, based on the true story of her family's tragedy. The appendix presents the original Japanese poetry written to capture the story as her mother said it in Hiroshima dialect. Moreover, the English translation is written with an "Objectivist" lineation similar in its understated power to Charles Reznikoff's "Testimony":

After crossing the Aoi Bridge,
I walked diagonally across the grounds of the Gokoku Shrine
To take a short cut.
Oh. That ground was filled with hundreds of people with horrible burns
Scattered everywhere.
Many of them were dead.
But those that still lived,
Begged, "Mizu! Mizu o kudasai," in faint whispers.
Soon my way was blocked by their outstretched arms.
One of them even grabbed my ankle, though feebly,
To stop me from running past him.
His burnt skin sloughed off his fingers,
As I pulled from his grip.

(pg. 23).

Kikuko Otake's Masako's Story is a powerful addition to the literature of the Atomic Bomb, and yet more evidence that we should all work together to stop the Nuclear madness.

 Thanks Alan Cordle and Foetry.com! 

If you weren't aware foetry.com (whose dedicated members doggedly pursue cronyism and cheats in the pobiz) has closed up shop. In there three years, foetry.com exposed some major universities, publishers, and well-known poets who were involved in contests and complicit in rigged contests-causing students, friends, and lovers to win.

This caught me off guard. Indeed, while posting seemed to be down on the site, no one thought they'd cease operations. Heck -- it had been months since I'd even posted.

This is from Feotry's site:

We would like to thank all of our members who helped Foetry.com pursue its mission by providing information, research, intelligent discussion and debate, by writing letters, raising consciousness, and by lifting up the voice of ethics and outrage the PoBiz has disenfranchised.

...

We believewe have made an impact on the PoBiz and helped bring some much needed attention to the fraud, favor-trading, and corruption that have led to the marginalization and commodification of American poetry and the homogenization of its poets.

Foetry.com has done all it can do in its present form. It has chiseled a small crack in the façade of the academic poetry industry, and allowed people to peer in on the poet-making machinery. What we saw was almost universally dissatisfying. But we were not all of one mind regarding what to do about this dissatisfaction. We, as poets, had never dealt with issues of ethics, activism, and philosophy before . . . not within our own little space of ambitions and inspirations and pecking orders. Not within our own tribe.

It's always hard to see clearly how one's own tribe functions. We are still trying to understand the relationships among personal ambition, tribal order, and money-flow (in the PoBiz). Foetry.com has helped us realize that these relationships and their long-term impacts cannot be left in the shadow of our ignorance. Not if the art (as opposed to merely the product) of poetry is to survive.

But the subtler understanding of these relationships and their impact on the social order of poets as well as on the artistic quality and self-definition of American poetry is still slowly evolving. Our tribe (American poets and PoBiz consumers), has not decided if or how to come out of its cave yet. But that small puncture in the wall made by Foetry.com and the many others who have raised their voices against the current system of poetry production (the PoBiz) is letting a little light in.

...

Until that time comes, find a way to keep fighting the good fight. Don't give up. Don't expect someone else to do it for you. Believe in the value of your voice, in your outrage, in your desire for change. In your ability to make things happen.

Anyway—you can check out the site here.

The Impossibility of Dreams is now available for order from Ahadada Books. Click here for more information. Or-go directly to our shop and order.

Copies are on their way to Small Press Distribution - but not available for order yet. We'll keep you updated. For now, order copies directly from us!

U.S. Poet Laureate Ted Kooser is a major poetic voice for rural and small town America and the award-winning author of ten collections of poetry, most recently 2004's Pulitzer Prize-winning Delights and Shadows. Nebraskan Kooser often draws from his native Great Plains and his poems are acclaimed for their simple, straightforward style. Kooser reads from his poetry before a standing-room only audience in Campbell Hall at UC Santa Barbara.

Here ya go...