Ex Chaos
by James and Lynne Wilkes
Renscombe Press
48 Pearce Ave.
Poole, Dorset
BH14 8 EH
No Price.

Peter Oxly did a great job of designing this paperback compilation of paintings and poems. It reminds me of a show catalogue from an upscale gallery. The paintings by Lynne Wilkes are of most interest here: they show various earth-colored shapes emerging from gessoed planes, the whole shot through with fractal patterns. The themes of the paintings were suggested by (according to the notes provided by James) the Chamberlain translation of the Kojiki. The Kojiki is one of the earliest compilations of myth and legend from Japan; it’s also a political document in that it establishes the connection between the Emperor and the sun. We understand the emphasis on beginnings in the pictures, then.

The problem begins with the cover of the book: Mr. Wilkes, the poet, includes the Chinese character for poetry under his name and the character for art under his mother’s name. Obviously Wilkes is in the midst of learning Japanese for himself and wishes somehow to display that knowledge. He tells us (rather breathlessly) in the book’s notes that he spent “nearly a year” in the same small Niigaata town where Nisiwaki Junzaburo was born. The poems themselves, I call “discovery” compositions: that is, they record the author’s discovering Japanese language/ culture for him or her self and presenting the work (complete with annotations of onomatopoeia) as a memorial to that discovery. Almost every English teacher who washes up on these shores writes them, but most hide them away. James Wilkes’ poems–even though they appear in such a wonderful package and in such interesting company–are half-baked, his notes embarrassing.

I’m sure that Mr. Wilkes means well, but my advice is to learn more and write more before you publish. And good luck!