Wyrd Works Announce Release Date for 108 Breaths

Online, January 3, 2012 (Newswire.com) - "A haiku is but one breath. It is the Kodak moment of modern poetry and it proves all Picasso needed to write a picture was 17 syllables."

Bite Sized Biographical Poems

For many Japanophiles, Japanese culture is about preserving perfection. This runs from the exacting rituals of tea ceremony and the correct stroke orders of shodo, to how flowers are arranged in Ikebana. However, as Alex Kerr says in Dogs and Demons, it was not always this way. The same goes for haiku poems.

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.

108 Breaths will be published in hardback from Feb1, 2012. It is also available for £0.99/$0.99 as a kindle eBook and for £1.50 as a PDF from http://www.markwollacott.com/books/