Author Description

Jim Kacian is one of the halfdozen best-known practitioners of haiku outside of Japan. He has produced a dozen books, and his work has been translated into more than 50 languages. Presents of Mind was his first full-length, award-winning collection, and became the first volume of English-language haiku ever to be seriously translated in full into Japanese. This volume, a collaboration between the author and the Kon Nichi Translation Group, led by Prof. Richard Gilbert and associated with Kumamoto University, will help readers of haiku understand why his work has been so favorably received in so many cultures. In addition to his own work, Kacian has edited and published scores of other books related to haiku, especially The Red Moon Anthology series, an annual compedium of the best haiku published in English around the world, and the contemporary haibun series, which does the same for haibun and haiga."Kacian's poetry exhibits a refreshing spark of imagination, a deep affinity with nature, and a joy in sharing experience- all of which draws the reader warmly in..." - H. F. Noyes"Reading Kacian's haiku helped me find my way into the tradition of this form, but I read them most of all because they present a sense of wonder in a setting familiar to me. Bringing this wonder home is his gift." - John Stevenson