This masterful collection of tanka features the work of Hazel Hall in collaboration with other leading practitioners of the form: Beverley George, Carole Harrison, Carol Judkins, Mary Kendall, Kathy Kituai and David Terelinck. Sit back, breathe slowly in and out, sip your cup of green tea... and enjoy!
Moonrise Over the Siding offers poems of intimacy, keen observation, poignancy, awareness and use of all the senses and occasionally, wry humour. The collection is organised in themed sections, each headlined with a thoughtfully selected artwork by Robert Tingey that informs and illustrates the title of each section. Each section contains individual tanka and longer works, including tanka prose, renga and tanka and haiku sequences.
Hall's individual tanka capture the nuances of nature, relationships, situations, occasions and people. Music plays a subtle but important role in many poems, with its power to invoke a setting and use as metaphor. The poet's sensitivity and awareness is apparent in each carefully composed poem. When writing with other poets, there is a keen sense of communication and empathy between each of the poets, while each maintains a separate style.
- Carmel Summers
