108 Breaths Released on Smashwords

Online, January 25, 2012 (Newswire.com) - Ahead of its print publication on Feb.1, 108 Breaths has been released on a wide variety of e-publishing formats. For the past month the book has been available on Amazon Kindle through the Amazon website.

The book is now available, via Wyrd Works and Smashword,s, on the Nook, Kobo, Diesel, iPad, iBooks and the Sony Reader for as little as $1.99.

108 Breaths represents Mark Wollacott's first foray into self-publishing and the culmination of five years teaching in Japan. Wollacott has expressed his excitement at seeing the book come to fruition and hopes his readers enjoy it as much as him.

Whether they are nature-loving haiku a la Mokudo, with a hint of mystery and assumption like Basho's frog haiku, or a more humorous senryu mocking human foibles, there is rich potential in the haiku form. Since the poems structure fossilized in Japan, it has spread across the world where it has found local flavours from the peculiarities of the local flora, seasons and landscapes to the different themes cultures put into their poetry.

108 Breaths is a very British interpretation of a man's five-year stint in the Far East. Mark Wollacott discovered haiku while reading a magazine article and spent the next half-decade developing his own peculiar style.

This book can be dipped into for bite-sized chunks of Japanalia or read as a continuous whole. It is divided into five chapters, each containing a season. Sandwiched between are haiku-essays called haibun that reflect on particular events such as bamboo root digging and a local festival with shrines on wheels. Some haikus are humorous, some sad and many are telling of life in Japan.

Mark Wollacott moved to Japan in 2004 after graduating with a degree in archaeology. He has since written for Kansai Scene, Kansai Time Out and the Austin Post. His first haiku was published as a letter in the Daily Telegraph. He now lives in the Cotswolds with his cats and books.