We stand on the turtle's back and ask for the wind. We fly through the turtle's mind and drink the sky. We walk through the turtle's home and know we are alive with others who are alive. Something like water, something like blood flows through all of us as the sun lifts up its great eye each morning. We do not move through this world alone. Penny Harter's poems mingle patient alertness with animal choirs, reading prophecy in shells, bones, fallen leaves. "Penny Harter speaks with the wisdom of her kinship to the greater biotic community. Her meld of intuition, intelligence, talent and command has resulted in an exceptional and complete collection of poems that reflects great reverence for the spirit of Nature while offering glimpses of the frightening hubris that characterizes our own species. This elegant volume is very important both poetically and philosophically."--Jack Loeffler

Lizard Light celebrates our sacred physical connection to the planet, and offers us a path not of ownership, but kinship, as part of the breathing world of ravens, rocks and constellations.

The Haiku Handbook is the first book to give readers everything they need to begin appreciating, writing, or teaching haiku. In this groundbreaking and now-classic volume, the authors present haiku poets writing in English, Spanish, French, German, and five other languages on an equal footing with Japanese poets. Not only are the four great Japanese masters of the haiku represented (Basho, Buson, Issa, and Shiki) but also major Western authors not commonly known to have written poetry in this form, including Gary Snyder, Jack Kerouac and Richard Wright. With a new foreword by poet, translator, and author Jane Reichhold (Basho: The Complete Haiku), this anniversary edition presents a concise history of the Japanese haiku, including the dynamic changes throughout the twentieth century as this beloved poetry form has been adapted to modern and urban settings. Full chapters are offered on form, the seasons in haiku, and haiku craft, plus background on the Japanese poetic tradition and the effect of translation on our understanding of haiku. Other unique features are chapters on teaching and sharing haiku, with lesson plans for both elementary and secondary school use; a seasonal word index of poetic words; a comprehensive glossary; and a list of enduring classic resources for further exploration. By any standard, The Haiku Handbook is the defining volume in the genre.

The poems in Still-Water Days are like prayers to the universe and to the universe in each of us. These are songs of earth, the sea, the galaxy, the cello as well as dissonant songs from those sleepless neon streets. Through memories, dreams, and the powers of observation, the poet brings us poems that fill the silence of this pandemic isolation. We walk the paths of the poet, become lost, become found, understand the bittersweetness of life, yet never let bitter take the lead. These are poems of joy, mystery, and sorrow that fill us with gratitude, hope, and the healing power of nature. -Carole MacRury, Author of In the Company of Crows: Haiku and Tanka Between the Tides Delving into day-to-day experiences with nature, memories, and dreams, Penny Harter writes a love-letter to life itself as she navigates her way through the restraining orders of the pandemic. The poems in Still-Water Days are roadmap poems through troubled times to the hopeful place of better times ahead. This collection of heartfelt passage is an accessible and indelible triumph of spirit. As Penny relates in her title poem, I gather clouds from blue waters, fill the / chambers of my heart with gentle murmurs, / find comfort in their slow shape-shifting / that mirrors my own, these still-water days. -Tom Clausen, Photographer, Poet, and Author of Growing Late, Snapshot Press In this new collection of intensely spiritual poems, readers find a kind of compressed storytelling that speaks both lyrically and narratively to our place on history's timeline. Characterized by textured emotional centers, clarity of form and expression, and a strong closeness to the natural world that is buttressed by the human spirit, these poems create a poetry of relationships that often points to a particular truth or leads readers to think more deeply about their own truths. Written during the Covid pandemic, Harter's poems embrace all that is haunting and all that is hopeful. -Adele Kenny, Poetry Editor of Tiferet Journal