1980s Poems I deal in demons Ya know what I mean? I see them in the daylight hours In banks, realtors outlets, Kiosks and inflatable houseboats. Pan and Prometheus know about The coming rain Another uneventful day is passing The man across the street white In his cotton shirt Scratches his balls and tugs at …Read More
Category: WiK members (Page 18 of 25)
Authors who belong to Writers in Kyoto
The Last Snow in Kyotoby Marianne Kimura I wrote this hoping that the last big snow in Kyoto (January 26, 2019) will NOT after all be the last snow ever in Kyoto. (It is so far, one year and four days later, but who is counting?) ****************** Over several years, the snow had undoubtedly become …Read More
The Old Man on the Hillby Richard Holmes I could see him through the pillars that looked down over the charred remains. Smoke rose up languidly from debris scattered everywhere, interrupted by the occasional flame that would shoot out unexpectedly. He stood there in his pajamas and hospital slippers, staring vacantly through gaunt, sunken eyes …Read More
Book Review of Tokyo: A Biography by Stephen Mansfield (208 pages) Disasters, Destruction and Renewal: The Story of an Indomitable City Reviewer: Ian Yates Tokyo, the city, the metropolis, the legend, has always been overpowering to me. It has intimidated and frightened me by its vastness. This fear morphed into disdain and a belief that …Read More
A small group of us met at Keage Station and began the walk up to Agon-shu’s huge Hoshi Matsuri event in the hills above Kiyomizu-dera. I’d been wanting to go for years, but always seemed to hear about it afterward, usually in that half-page ad in the Japan Times that the sect shells out big …Read More
a year in review — a haphazard collection of unruly short verse by Lisa Wilcut SPRING blossoms assembling to view springtime crowds below–– beckoned by sake, smoke and laughter the whole body of the bird on the ledge vibrating with the effort of each note down to its last …Read More
The following poem, a contemporary take on the Californian Dream, was delivered at the 2019 bonenkai by Preston Keido Houser, who followed it up with a shakuhachi piece in lighter vein. A villanelle is a fixed-form poem consisting of five tercets and a quatrain and follows a specific rhyme scheme using only two different sounds. …Read More
Mayumi Kawaharada writes: At the beginning of autumn, on a sunny day, I joined a volunteer event of fixing bamboo fences alongside the bamboo forests in Arashiyama. It was organised by a NPO called “People together for Mt. Ogura”. My haiku master , Stephen H Gill, is one of the cofounders of this group. They …Read More
Report by Iris Reinbacher… On the evening of December 8, WiK held its bonenkai, a yearly tradition under the theme of “Words and Music” (for last year’s account, see here). We celebrated the old year, which not only brought a new era to Japan as a whole, but also proved to be a very successful …Read More
Self Introduction – Jay Crystall I was born in New York City in the 1960’s. And that’s where I spent my entire life before moving to Kyoto in February 2011, weeks before the Great Eastern Japan Earthquake. I never had designs on becoming a writer although I spent decades developing my musical style and songwriting. …Read More
WiK 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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