Exhibition of ‘Spirit of Shizen’ at Luxembourg’s Natural History Museum, July-August 2022 by Robert Weis Nature in Japan has long been awe-inspiring through the beautifully articulated four seasons, but also threatening due to recurrent natural phenomena such as volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, heavy rainfalls and tsunami. The traditional relationship between Japanese people, their culture and their …Read More
Category: WiK members (Page 8 of 25)
Authors who belong to Writers in Kyoto
‘Hic svnt Dracons‘ by Alex Olivera By way of introduction…. Louise Bourgeois once said that the artist who discusses the so-called ‘meaning of his work’ is usually describing a literary side issue, and that the core of their original impulse is to be discovered, if at all, in the work itself. It is under this light that …Read More
by Edward J. Taylor The closer we got to Mt. Hiei’s eastern face, the less I liked the look of the sky. Those carved valleys were holding onto clouds, letting loose precipitation which would eventually precipitate cuts deeper still. Mere minutes off the train, the rain found us, and the cuts most quickly noticeable were …Read More
by Douglas Anthony Cooper Where a woman, hand full of sunflowersDwarfs a tyrant, shames a soldierLays a curse upon cowardsThere we who are small and watchingMerely watching, safe behind screensAre maybe redeemedAnd blue will rise over yellow And we who are breathing, poorlyAir sick with lies, alone among friendsAnd starved of wonderLook to a woman …Read More
(an excerpt from The Baseball Widow)By Suzanne Kamata Christine loved Trina’s oak table. She loved this kitchen with its American-sized refrigerator decorated with animal magnets and children’s art, its scent of baked bread, and the cross-stitch samplers on the wall. She loved Trina’s dishes, painted with blue Chinese landscapes, like the ones that she ate …Read More
REVIEW by Rebecca Otowa THE WIDOW, THE PRIEST AND THE OCTOPUS HUNTERBy Amy Chavex (Tuttle 2022) Available on Amazon Amy Chavez has had an unusual life in Japan. Beginning in a teaching position in Okayama, a city between Kobe and Hiroshima, she moved to an island in the nearby Japan Sea known as Shiraishi (White …Read More
Japan Sitting in an office, staring through the long windowsOf the next building’s offices, I see cold sky,I see black mountains flat on it like stencils. Through lower windows in that same slabI see a line of office window river panels,The river brownish blue, and surpassingly calm, Intricately-placidly rippled by, one guesses,A subtle wind, a …Read More
by Stephen Benfey —A rock has a hundred faces, the Japanese gardener said. I thought of asking why not two-hundred, but this was one of Sawamura’s greatest hits, up there with Nature is always right, the latter spoken in his Kyoto-accented English. —Sensei, I said, —all this nice weather and no jobs. What’s up?” —Keeping …Read More
by Jann Williams (January 26, 2022) Identifying the oldest yin-yang symbol in Japan has been an ongoing passion of mine. The philosophy of yin-yang (J. in-yo) was formally introduced into Japan in the 6th century AD and still permeates contemporary culture. One might imagine that the two-tone interlocking representation of yin-yang, created in the late …Read More
by Stephen Benfey The temple bell rang long and loud that night. Dogs howled. Cats like Meander played. At Shinto Shrines across Japan worshippers pitched cash into slotted boxes, praying for prosperity, health, and success. When Meander got home he found an empty house. When Helene got home she found a peeved Meander waiting to …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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