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FIRE PEARLS: SHORT MASTERPIECES OF THE HUMAN HEART — Edited by M. Kei, trade
paperback, 160 pages, $14.95 USD. Available from <www.Lulu.com/firepearls> or major
booksellers.
A handsome new anthology of nearly four hundred tanka, kyoka, cinquains, and free verse by more than fifty
poets from around the world. Includes both well known and emerging voices, arranged into five seasons that
explore the human heart through its many manifestations of love and passion.
“Fire Pearls will be quite a surprise for those who are frequent readers of tanka, the five-line poem with a
1300 year history. For newcomers to tanka, the poems should be a challenge and a delight. The last section,
entitled 'Fifth Season,' is a tour de force. To journey through this anthology is to experience key moments of
our lives.“ — Sanford Goldstein, co-translator of Tangled Hair: Selected Tanka from Midaregami
“What a magnificent anthology . . . it weakens, heartens, humbles, enlarges, and delivers so many poetic
truths that I just am so glad to see this come to fruition.” — Tom Clausen, author of Growing Late
Excerpts from Fire Pearls:
between sun and shade
a butterfly pauses
like none I've seen—
who ever falls in love
with someone they know?
Michael McClintock
the tilt
of her head to undo
an earring—
fortresses crumble into
winter moonlight
Larry Kimmel
rain-furled hibiscus—
in the slow refolding
of our secret places
we draw even closer
than at passion's zenith
Beverley George
White birch
with black-streaked trunk,
How many Russian girls
have hugged you, crying for their long
lost loves?
Zhanna P. Rader
His heart
is a skeleton key
that unlocks doors
that should never
be opened.
M. Kei
mourners assemble
after Joe’s funeral—
they come
to pick widow Green’s apples
and press out the amber juice
John Daleiden
and still
there may be encounters
in this penny world,
and still the electric surge
of a look, a stare, a nod
Sanford Goldstein
To purchase, or for more information, contact:
M. Kei, Editor
P O Box 1118
Elkton, MD, 21922-1118
<www.Lulu.com/firepearls>
<firepearls @nospam@ verizon.net>.
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