We’re very happy to report that Yoko Danno’s lyrical translation of the Kojiki made Grace Cavalieri’s best reading for poetry list. Take a look at this fine online journal at http://www.themontserratreview.com/.

Donald Richie’s great review of Yoko Danno’s Songs and Stories of the Kojiki ran in the Japan Times on the 21st of this month in his “Asian Bookshelf” column. It’s now online at http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fb20080921dr.html. In his review Mr. Richie confirms exactly what I felt about the manuscript after I’d read the first few pages. I’d winced my way through Basil Hall Chamberlain’s 1882 translation and had also read Donald L. Phillipi’s treatment of the book. What was needed was a reader’s edition translated by a very fine poet and there it was in my hands.

Please see Danielle Winterston’s great article “Learning To Think,” which features Dr. Derek Cabrera’s revolutionary educational tool “Think Blocks” and its connection with things haptic, including Haptic Poetry. Online at: http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=20015129&BRD=1395&PAG=461&dept_id=216620&rfi=6.

Just caught the Hadron Super-collider CERN rap on YouTube and it really does bring down the house! Great stuff and accurate as to what this super-tool is all about.

Taking my daughter to Disneyland. Looks a bit like rain, but we’ve got our umbrellas.

Reading Spinoza. Enough said.

The greatest news of the summer is the CERN project. Even as I write, this incredible tool is starting to crank up, sending atoms racing in opposite directions through miles of magnetic coils like bullet trains passing mere inches from each other in the tunnel on the Tokyo-to-Fukuoka run. So what if two protons knock foreheads and give birth to a speck of dark matter, or to a black hole the size of a gnat’s arsehole? The savants tell us not to be concerned and so I’m not. I recall that some folks predicted dire consequences when Haley’s comet returned years back, yet the whole thing turned out to be a non-event. I don’t think the weather even allowed us one good view. I can just imagine the grin on Spinoza’s face, or Newton’s, or Einstein’s when, in the coming weeks, we’ll suddenly understand more of the complexities of where we came from and where we’re going. Inspiring times indeed, even for an expat poet and reader of William Blake.

CNN international usually forms a large percentage of the background noise in my apartment here in Japan. Yes, yes, of course, we understand something of what’s happening in Pakistan and Zimbabwe, but when “The Situation Room” rolls on, or other shows offering a “closer look” at American politics and the race for the presidency, I am–as they say–”gob-smacked.” Or should I say, “God-smacked?” Why all this chest (and breast) beating about God and religion? Why must this race continue to degenerate into a Saturday morning cartoon about the good guys and the bad guys? Why are we a heartbeat away from voting into office somene who actually believes that the most obnoxious book of the Bible–the Book of Revelations–is the political road-map for the immediate future? We suspected as much about George W. Bush and Condi Rice, but now, with Sarah Palin (with her Third Way Christian proclivities) on the political map, I fear that we are truly returning to the Middle Ages, exemplified by more people being concerned about the creation of “black holes” via the CERN project, than the mental stability of a “true believer” with a real yen for power within real striking distance of the White House. Beware those people who know that they are “truly right”–you find them on the political Left and the Right–and you’ll know them by the glint in the eye and the mile-long smile. Take a look at the videos of Palin and her church on YouTube, the Huffington Post, etc.–and join me in praying for another kind of miracle–that all of those smug, self-satisfied American beef-eaters don’t get snookered into voting for more of that insanity into office. The world gushes like an over-full slop jar with the by-products of those who believe that being religious means hanging your brain on the coat rack before taking a seat among the saved. Let us try to step back to a time when the “best and brightest” could acually think instead of emote and could keep their personal beliefs separate from their public service.

Ahadada books is not Random House, Scribner’s, HarperCollins, Vintage, Penguin LTD., nor is Ekleksographia the New Yorker, the Paris Review, the Southern Review. What we are is a cooperative press that hangs by a thread; asymmetrical publishing via an internet gizmo that actually gets things done, and gets some very fine experimental and new work into the hands of the right people. We ask anyone who publishes with us to be prepared to help in some fashion, especially–especially!– with the distribution and publicity connected with their own books. Why? Take one look at the history of small press and you’ll understand.

As Jerry Rothenberg says “we are all geniuses.” No one here is above carrying a box of books, or shelling out for postage for review copies, or pitching the work of other ahadada authors to their fellow writers and friends.

Ahadada Books is not a money-making operation. In fact, since its beginning it’s been a financial loss. Still, for almost ten years now, we’ve actually been making beautiful books of experimental poetry and prose and finding the right audience for them. That’s pretty close to a miracle.

Noon; Journal of the Short Poem
Philip Rowland, editor
noonpress[at]mac.com

Starts, unpromisingly enough, with stiff and then downright laughable lines by Ravi Shankar: (pg. 4): “When verbs outflank/A noun’s hale adjectives….” (I especially enjoy the “hale” adjectives!), but gets better with each turn of the page. Lots of familiar names: Jane Hirshfield (as precious as ever), Halvard Johnson (yow, Hal!), but lots and lots of good work too. Could this be the best issue yet? Beautifully produced and still issued in a limited edition with a transparent envelope designed to keep the germs at bay. Visit Noon’s website for more information.