To read NATURE HERE IS HALF JAPANESE is to accompany the author on her perambulations in natural settings noticing the changes though the year. Concurrently, an empathetic reader may find it parallels in her book to ones hopefully long lived life including ones inevitable aging. If there’s an unwritten message in her book it’s to celebrate the seasons while you are here. You could go for a ginko, i.e. a walk in natural setting too. If it’s raining or too cold to be outside; a mall could be the place for your walkabout. Wherever you are, look around and celebrate especially the small things. It could be by writing a haiku. Poets often carry notebooks to pencil in ideas that occur to them when they walk. As Michael Dylan Welch points out in the Welcome Section of Baker’s book, the specific subjects of Winona Baker’s observations are most often things seen in British Columbia’s Pacific Northwest area. Her fondness for the southeast region of Vancouver Island, where she has lived for many years, shows up clearly in the haiku and senryu in NATURE HERE IS HALF JAPANESE, her seventh book.

This sample of Winona Baker’s haiku is from the award winning author’s latest book NATURE HERE IS HALF JAPANESE. Her poetry has appeared in over 90 hard cover and perfect bound poetry anthologies as well as numerous chapbook anthologies, day calendars, posters, publications and a video game The Haiku Journey. You will find much to enjoy in this book, from the Welcome introductory ‘learning about haiku’ pages written by well known haijin Michael Dylan Welch to the author’s haiku and senryu. Here are some seasonal haiku from Baker’s book. first daffodils the postman follows his whistle door to door more casualties in Afghanistan— I deadhead roses a stand of alder half-hidden a white horse moving in bright leaves walking after the quarrel snow lower on the mountain

NATURE HERE IS HALF JAPANESE, is the latest book of haiku by Winona Baker. She has spent years studying and writing haiku a form of poetry from Japan that has become the most written kind poetry worldwide. The author has received many North American, European and Japanese awards for writing.