twelve moons
by Claire Everett (2012)
Reviewed by Amelia Fielden.
Atlas Poetica 14, Spring 2013
Here is a collection for the romantics amongst us! The tanka in Claire Everett’s twelve moons collection are beautiful, twenty-first century echoes of the classical Japanese waka of love, longing and loss.
My heart and mind are taken back to the world of the Heian era women poets by its very title twelve moons, and then the division of Claire’s book into these chapters: spring; awakening moon; egg moon; lilac moon; summer; corn-tassels moon; mead moon; barley moon; autumn; harvest moon; leafdance moon; whitefrost moon; winter; long nights moon; wolf moon; hunger moon.
The world of tenth century waka/tanka was opened to English readers in 1990 with the publication of The Ink Dark Moon, Love Poems by Ono no Komachi and Izumi Shikibu, translated by Jane Hirshfield with Mariko Otani.
Indeed, one of Claire’s harvest moon tanka directly relates to that wonderful book of translations:
cloth-soft edges . . .
whose hands held you before mine?
my heart
a rice-paper sky
for The Ink Dark Moon
In twelve moons, we find four pieces which include the word ‘tanka’, another three which sing of poems and the writing of poetry in general, and this one in the autumn moon chapter which references the first great collection of waka/tanka, the eighth century Man’yōshū, the Collection of Ten Thousand Leaves:
until, my love
our days have the ink
of autumn
drying in their veins . . .
ten thousand leaves in the sun
A characteristic of Japanese collections, also, — even in the modern era — is to include a number of poems about the creative process, and the comfort to be found specifically in reading and composing tanka. It is clearly a comfort which Claire, too, enjoys, in addition to the delights in contemplating the natural world around her. One of my favourite tanka in twelve moons is this:
spring’s first iris
I watch her unfold
her blue kimono . . .
the comfort of rituals
in this shaken world
There is strong resonance in some of Claire’s tanka with japanese imagery: here we have the unfolding of a kimono; in another poem her heart is likened to a koto (Japanese harp); while the night as a black flower is an enduring makurakotoba (fixed epithet) in traditional Japanese tanka. This is Claire’s ‘black flower’ love poem:
scent of breaking light
the shortest day
this night
a black flower
we have pressed between us
And, in the long nights moon chapter, decorated with Japanese terms is this charming shasei tanka:
from the tip
of the breeze-brushed fir
red sumi-e
a robin’s calligraphy
this roll of kinwashi sky
Yes, there are many Japanese connections in twelve moons; but there are also poems which sing of the English countryside and many original metaphors, such as this whole tanka, another of my favourites:
miles away
a piece of the stream
is still singing
of the loss
of the heron’s reflection
Outstandingly, this is a collection throbbing with universal emotions, expressed in the fresh voice of Claire Everett.
It is a life-loving voice, frequently wistful — proportionately there are more which could be classified as ‘poems of longing’ than any other type of tanka in this collection — yet it is a voice which reflects the joys as well as the griefs of ‘everywoman’.
Delicate black and white ink nature drawings by Claire’s daughter, Amy, enhance the pages of twelve moons. The lovely fox in the snow cover is also the work of this talented young artist.
An introduction by David Terelinck gives an excellent analysis and summation of this book, which I recommend wholeheartedly.
The Reviewer:
Amelia Fielden is an award-winning, internationally published poet and a professional translator. A graduate of the Australian National University, she holds a Master’s degree in Japanese Literature. Amelia has had 6 volumes of original English tanka published, the most recent being Light on Water (2010). In addition, she has collaborated with fellow Australian poet Kathy Kituai, and with Japanese poet Saeko Ogi, to produce 4 collections of responsive tanka, including the bilingual Word Flowers (2011). Amelia has also published 17 books of Japanese poetry in translation.
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