In the Company of Crows: HAIKU and TANKA Between the Tides; by Carole MacRury. Black Cat Press (Eldersburg, MD, USA). Sumi-e illustrations by Ion Codrescu; edited by Cathy Drinkwater Better. Softcover; 160 pp; ISBN 0-9766407-7-5. $18.00, postage paid. Published November 2008; available after December 15, 2008, from the author; contact macrury@whidbey.com.

This is the first collection by award-winning poet Carole MacRury, of Point Roberts, Washington (USA), whose work has been widely published in both U.S. and international literary journals. The book features a foreword by Beverley George—president of HaikuOz, the Australian Haiku Society, and the editor of Eucalypt, Australia’s first literary journal devoted to tanka—a preface by the poet; and more than twenty sumi-e illustrations, including several haiga, by Romanian artist Ion Codrescu. In addition to individual poems, there are several haiku and tanka sequences.

“The clarity of [MacRury’s] images and the accuracy of her word choices are signatures of a mind that engages with the natural world with eyes wide open and a blend of curiosity and awe,” writes George in her foreword. “This poet can write at the cutting edge of life.”