by Sara Ackerman Aoyama Natsumi opened the door cautiously and walked into the Starbucks. She was counting on being able to grab a chair at the window overlooking the Kamo River. But first, her eyes went to the menu on the wall. She could hardly believe it but today, finally, was the day that the …Read More
Author: John Dougill (Page 4 of 45)
A new publication features WiK members, Rebecca Otowa and Ted Taylor…. Blurb – A Passion for Japan brings together the stories of thirty long-term residents of Japan who have, among other things, gained behind-the-scenes access to one of Japan’s most famous festivals; worked as an interpreter and commentator in professional and amateur sumo; been ordained …Read More
Excerpts from Grace Notes, by Ken Rodgers WORDS For Yuri, 1983 The universal love-poem has no words By the window a deep and full cup drinks: technicolor red and yellow tulip turning to the light Living clay on the sun’s wheel SHAKKEI, AT ENTSU-JI The garden is empty; an airy room without walls. The view across …Read More
by Iris Reinbacher The Rinpa (or Rimpa) school of Japanese painting was created in Kyoto at the beginning of the Edo period. Its patrons were old aristocratic families as well as wealthy merchants who commissioned large-scale works on fusuma folding doors or byobu folding screens for their homes. Rinpa’s numerous artists gave us masterpieces such …Read More
“Lemon” (Remon) is a short story by Motojirō Kajii. written in 1924. Plot(The following is taken from Wikipedia. To see the full entry, click here.) The protagonist, who has diseased lungs, is tormented by strange anxiety all the time. He lost his interest in the stationery store Maruzen, music, and poetry that he had been …Read More
Wintermoon, by Robert Maclean. Isobar Press, Tokyo, 2022. A review by Mark Richardson. I’m most at home with verse conventional to English from the 16th through the 20th centuries. I enjoy poems that argue or imply arguments. I want rhyme, well-framed stanzas, conceits. Give me Hardy, Herbert, Larkin, Frost or Bishop⎯or Seidel and Ogden Nash. …Read More
by Stephen Benfey, May 2022 Down the hill from where she lived and up a side street was a little shop that Ann had grown to love. The woman there spared Ann the “Help! It’s a gaijin!” act. Nor did she mouth misremembered middle-school English while deaf to Ann’s Japanese. No, Tanaka-san was helpful and …Read More
Europe’s largest Japanese gardenby Robert Weis Kaiserslautern is not the kind of place where you look for a piece of Japan. Nestled in the forests of the Palatinate, this town of 100,000 inhabitants is relatively isolated from Germany’s cultural hot spots. But there is one attraction that is the local pride: the Japanese garden, at …Read More
by Jann Williams, April 21, 2022 It was not until my mid-50s that a deep interest in Japanese culture was stirred, seeking lessons on how to connect people and nature in a quest for sustainability. The elements of nature are my guide, embedded as they are in all aspects of Japanese life – whether it …Read More
by James Woodham comb your hair with windlet the hills flow through your eyessun adorn your skin wind on the waterwind in my hair and the crow’s hollow notes dropping sun warm on the skinears full of the mountain streambreathing the blue sky to be free of nowas a bird takes to the airthe future floating …Read More
Kyoto Writing Competition
WiK Anthologies
The Nature of Kyoto (2023)
Eds. Lisa Twaronite Sone & Robert Weis
Foreword by Pico Iyer
Structures of Kyoto (2021)
Eds: Rebecca Otowa & Karen Lee Tawarayama
Foreword by Judith Clancy
Encounters with Kyoto (2019)
Eds: Jann Williams & Ian Josh Yates
Foreword by Juliet Winters Carpenter
Echoes (2017)
Eds: John Dougill, Amy Chavez, & Mark Richardson
Preface by Alex Kerr
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