April 27, 2011 For Immediate Release

I’m a Traveler: a collection of tanka, by Kozue Uzawa, Published by MET Press

Baltimore, Maryland – April 27, 2011 – I’m a Traveler: a collection of tanka by Kozue Uzawa, has been published as a trade paperback by MET Press of Baltimore, Maryland. Most of the tanka in this book appeared originally in: Eucalypt (Australia), GUSTS (Canada), Modern English Tanka (USA), Moonbathing (USA), red lights (USA), Ribbons (USA), Season’s Greetings Letter (USA), Tanka Café (USA), Tanka Journal (Japan), and Tanka Splendor 2006 (online, USA) from 2004 to 2011. Also, in anthologies: Haiku Canada Members’ Anthology (2009 & 2010, Canada), Landfall: Poetry of Place in Modern English Tanka (2007, USA), and Take Five: Best Contemporary Tanka vol. 2 (2010, USA). Some of them, translated into Romanian by Magdalena Dale, appeared in Haiku: Magazine of Romanian-Japanese Relationships (2009, 2010) and Albatross (2009, Romania). I’m a Traveler: a collection of tanka is Kozue Uzawa’s first published collection of tanka, selected from her works published in journals over the period 2004–2011.

"The purities of the short poem in English are found in abundance in these tender and unaffected tanka by one of the genre’s most prominent advocates. Kozue Uzawa’s compositions reflect the modesty and grace of the classic Japanese model, particularly the autobiographical poem. These tanka draw their subject matter from everyday, ordinary experience and events. Their focus is on the unscripted, private realms of consciousness, feelings, and motivations that moil ceaselessly in daily dialogue between the self and the world. Within this specific practice, Kozue Uzawa appears to have found a medium flexible enough to be grounded in tradition yet creatively free and responsive to the complex facts of contemporary living. Thus life and art are together affirmed.

"First and foremost, poetry of this caliber is a pleasure to read. In their exquisite delicacy, balance and harmony, these short poems achieve an aesthetic fusion that is strong enough to carry them far forward in time, beyond the personal and intimate experiences from which they arise. The one-poem-per-page presentation is especially salutary, giving poem and reader a comfortable spaciousness for meditation, and for that experience of aesthetic merging, the one with the other, which is this poetry’s singular and compelling delight. Traveler and companion, poet and reader, are co-creators here.

"What poetry is, where it takes us, and how it changes us, are subjects of endless books and essays. I have read a large number of them and, interesting and often clever as they may be, I remain persuaded that the best teacher of poetry is a poem. In this collection of poems, we have not one classroom but a university."

—Michael McClintock, President, Tanka Society of America (2004–2010)

Kozue Uzawa was born in Tokyo, migrated to Canada in 1971, and received a Ph.D. from the University of British Columbia. She is a retired university professor. She lived in Vancouver (BC), Lethbridge (Alberta), and now she lives in Burnaby (BC). Kozue participated in the foundation of Tanka Canada in 2005, and works as editor of its English tanka journal GUSTS. She composes tanka both in Japanese and English. She also translates Japanese tanka into English and co-published Ferris Wheel: 101 Modern and Contemporary Tanka (Boston: Cheng & Tsui, 2006), and Kaleidoscope: Selected Tanka of Shuji Terayama (Tokyo: Hokuseido Press, 2008). Ferris Wheel received the 2007 Donald Keene Translation Award for Japanese Literature from Columbia University. Kozue is one of the twenty-five Canadian tanka poets selected by Aurora Antonovic for Atlas Poetica in 2010.

For media inquiries or to arrange an interview with the author, contact Kozue Uzawa by e-mail at uzawa@shaw.ca. Publisher information at: www.themetpress.com.

This book is available from www.Lulu.com/modernenglishtanka. Information is available online at www.themetpress.com Price: $14.95 USD. ISBN 978-1-935398-22-6. Trade paperback. 132 pages, 6" x 9", perfect binding, 60# cream interior paper, black and white interior ink, 100# exterior paper, full-color exterior ink.

MET Press (Modern English Tanka Press) is a small independent publishing house in Baltimore, Maryland, dedicated to producing work of lasting literary value, especially fine verse. We use modern print-on-demand production and distribution methods. Our special mission is to promote the tanka form of poetry and to educate newcomers about this most ancient poetic form.

Contact: Denis M. Garrison, owner, MET Press / Modern English Tanka Press

Telephone: 443-559-2776 Email to dmg@themetpress.com Website: www.themetpress.com

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