Echoes is a collection of linked-verse poetry by Michelle Hyatt and Jacob Salzer created over the course of a year through email correspondence.
We honor the traditional forms of linked-verse poetry and those who have gone before us. As such, we have done our very best to stay true to the traditional forms while allowing some room for experimentation. As an example, in our two-line verses, sometimes there is an ellipsis within one line. We also wrote experimental six-link rengay, where our verses link-and-shift within broader, abstract themes. We’ve also included tan renga sequences. As a reference, we primarily used John Carley’s book, Renku Reckoner.
In terms of linked-verse forms, our book consists of tan renga sequences, yotsumono, rengay, experimental six-link rengay, junicho, a kasen, and solo linked-verse.
Ultimately, Echoes is a book of friendship. In the spirit of friendship, Michelle and I encourage you to write collaboratively to break down the walls of solitary writing and make new friends and connections.
Safe travels. We hope you enjoy the journey!
Michelle Hyatt & Jacob Salzer
$12.50 US
Hyatt and Salzer’s first linked-verse collaboration together offers poetry of movement between the authors’ verses, choreographed by the Japanese forms of renga, rengay, and others. The collection achieves a “blissful silence of ecstatic dance” in poems that aren’t about merely friendship but are themselves friendship made poetic. In most of the pieces, apart from the solo linked-verse, the poets alternate stanzas, which creates the effect of “roots and shoots.../ push-pull energy/ in a garden/” to cultivate a natural tension but also a stirring awareness of the space between verses, friends, moments, and nature and art.
The subject matter reflects the collection’s poetic form, often juxtaposing, as is traditional in Japanese poetry, seemingly disparate images to illuminate stark truths that relate at times to the political, as in “The Machine” and “A Drop of Water,” the ancestral, as in “Inheritance” and “Grandma’s Stories,” and the natural, as in “Kaleidoscope” and “First Light,” where lines like “tired of the English language / I sit in the shade/ with a cranefly” explore the kind of paradoxes that aren’t housed in the sphere of chaos but rather the sphere of dream. The world is always turning, yet life remains still. Echoes shows readers contradictions of peace.
Yet while Hyatt and Salzer’s poems occupy this lulling, liminal space of blurred consciousness, they also harmonize into a soundtrack or sound-portrait of modern life, and the collection is abundant with lines like this one from “Black Ice”: “breaking news/ in the old t.v./ drifting clouds.” The way we live today is exposed in blends of dissimilar images that pair the mundane with the strange, but the authors throughout point towards how we can find serenity amid this chaos. An echo is a thing between sound and silence, and readers in this collection will find depth and meaning in their exposure to all three.
Takeaway: A linked-verse collaboration exploring nature, friendship, and the spaces between.
Great for fans of: Hiroaki Sato’s One Hundred Frogs, Matsuo Bashō.
Production grades
Cover: A
Design and typography: A
Illustrations: N/A
Editing: A
Marketing copy: A
Print Date: 02/06/2023
“Echoes is a wonderful collaboration between two great haiku poets. Each carefully crafted sequence will stretch the readers' imagination and take them on a journey of possibilities with every twist and turn. Buckle up and enjoy the ride.”
—Brendon Kent, Head English Haiku Instructor online for Haiku University (Tokyo), English Adjuster for The World Haiku Association (WHA) Anthologies, Member of the British Haiku Society, & author of 'moon on water' by Alba Publishing (2018)
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“Echoes is an enchanting read carrying us on a poetic journey with the natural world, its sheer beauty and spontaneity, juxtaposed with the two authors' sensitive interactions in the human world and nature. In this delightful book, Michelle Hyatt and Jacob Salzer present a seamless collaboration of linked verses in various traditional forms inspired by love and awe.”
—Diana Saltoon, Author of Wife, Just Let Go: Zen, Alzheimer’s, and Love, with Robert Briggs (2017), Tea and Ceremony (2004), The Common Book of Consciousness (1990), and Four Hands: Green Gulch Poems (1987)
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“Displaying command of a wide range of linked forms, from the shortest tan-renga to a full 36 link kasen, Jacob and Michelle have woven a tapestry of micro-narratives with a serene and distinctly humane touch. There is a warm tranquility at the heart of this collection that uplifts the spirit of the reader.”
—Clayton Beach, Editor of Heliosparrow poetry journal and co-founder of Heliosparrow Press
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“I just finished this fabulous book of poetry by Jacob Salzer and his friend Michelle Hyatt. Every poem in the book is a gem. This book blew me away with it's depth and beauty. Highly recommend you read it too."
—Lulu Review by Carolyn Winkler, author of Masayume: A Dream Comes True
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“This newly published anthology Echoes – A Collection of Linked Verse Poetry by Michelle Hyatt and Jacob Salzer should not be missed. It is, as Salzer explains in the introduction of the book, about friendship, which is further emphasized in the acknowledgment page where they express their gratitude to many other poet friends. Echoes is a fine example of poet collaboration on various forms of renku inspired verse."
—Lulu Review by Shelley Baker-Gard
