We are passionate about creativity as a means of transforming consciousness, both individually and socially.  We hope to participate in a revolution to return poetry to the public discourse and a place in the world which matters.  Of the many important issues of our times we feel that our relationship to the environment is of the most fundamental concern.  Our publications reflect the ideal that falling in love with the earth is nothing short of revolutionary and that through our relationship to nature we can birth a more enlightened vision of life for the future.  We believe that art and poetry are the universal language of the human experience and are thus most capable of transforming our vision of self and world.

An active poet, freelance poetry editor, and highly ecumenical Christian writer in all genres, Mary Harwell Sayler has 25 books to her credit ranging from novels for young people, a children’s picture book, inspirational romances, a 7-book series of devotionals and two life-health encyclopedias, one of which the American Library Association (ALA) honored as a nonfiction academic favorite for the year. In addition to her traditionally published books, Mary has had over 1,500 nonfiction articles, devotionals, Bible stories, or children’s stories and over 300 poems in journals, anthologies and e-zines. Her latest work is a collection of poetry, entitled Living in the Nature Poem, set to come out through the eco-publisher Hiraeth Press on June 15th. In my capacity as Co-Lead Editor for Hiraeth, I recently had the opportunity to sit down with Mary and discuss the inspiration for her upcoming work.

In preparing for my interview with Sayler—a well-known Christian writer, I found myself circling back to reflect on where my spiritual path began, which is something I have not done in some time. Raised a Catholic, the early days of my spiritual journey were spent walking the pages of the Old and New Testament—both of which are familiar topics in Sayler writings. Unfulfilled by the narrow road I was set upon by those around me, I stepped out into the wider world of spirituality. Emerging into adolescence with a strong spiritual curiosity, I started to veer away from the traditional gospels and moved into the apocryphal verse, the pinnacle of this was reached when I delved headfirst into the 1000-page text that is Nag Hammadi library, which has in recent years become the object of much speculation given that it includes the Gospel of Thomas {the only Gospel in Christianity known to have survived potentially written from the first person perspective of Yeshua [Jesus.] As the years passed, I eventually went beyond Catholicism as a whole and started the long pilgrimage into my own personal spirituality, stopping for years at a time within the villages of other world religions including: Tibetan Buddhism, Judaism, Druidry and Shamanism.

Just as I carved out my own literary identity and spiritual philosophy so, too, has Sayler. Through each one of her articles and with each book put forth into the mosaic of her work, she has shaped a unique literary voice that carries across the boundaries of form, style and subject. Firm in her beliefs but by no means narrowed by them, Mary’s spiritual insights draw readers from all walks of faith.

L.M.: Welcome Mary. Thank you for speaking with me today. Let us begin at the beginning shall we: Where did your spiritual path begin?

M.H.S.: Before I can remember, Mother taught us Bible stories and prayers, but my earliest memory is in a Sunday School Class for 3-year-old’s when we sang “Jesus Loves Me,” and I believed it!

L.M.: My first impacting spiritual experience also took place when I was child. It would seem that those simple but magical moments are the ones that become the foundation for our faith. In my experience as a spiritual author, more and more people tend to be shifting away from traditional religious doctrines, opting instead for a more personal spirituality. Have you found this to be true?

M.H.S.: Yes, definitely. Often this occurs when a local church doesn’t seem relevant because the music, homily or sermon is out of touch or out of date. Or people grow up in a denomination that does not suit them, but they’re timid about visiting elsewhere or, perhaps, think all churches are the same. They’re not – and yet they are! Various moves around the country in early years of marriage showed my husband and me that basic beliefs hold the Body of Christ together, but each denomination has its own place in that body similar to an arm or lung or heart. So even though my Christian life started in a hands-and-foot church, as an adult I began to grow more spiritually when I found an eyes-and-ears home with stained glass windows, gorgeous music and poetic liturgy. Centering prayer and books by Christian mystics nurture me spiritually too.

L.M.: Prayers of course come in many forms. Personally, I find that walking through the calm of an untouched nature place—through tall grasses or along the shore—can resonate within like a silent prayer. Your next book reflects on finding the sacred in the wildness of nature. Do you hold the belief that the Divine can be found in nature?

 M.H.S.: Yes, especially since I believe God called everything natural into being and gave every part of the body of earth permission to just naturally unfold, flourish, be blessed, and become a blessing too.

L.M.: What is the intended message of Living in the Nature Poem?

 M.H.S.: We’re part of nature. That’s where we live – in the natural poem of our own body cells, skin or exterior environment as well as the day-to-day poems of our own making. If we’re at one with ourselves, we’re apt to aim for oneness with other people, too, and maybe the whole universe.

L.M.: What inspired the book?

 M.H.S.: Actually, the publisher did. When I saw the quality and type of poetry published by Hiraeth Press, I searched my files for poems connected to nature. The individual poems came about, however, because people often seem disconnected – even dis-integrated – and uncertain of themselves or anything. The break-up of relationships in church-families, marriages, and local communities have scattered us from one another, while a heavy emphasis on physical appearance seems to make us seek some other self. Male or female, it’s like we’re trying to clone The Ideal Look to connect with everyone else when we might do well to spend time, getting to know ourselves and our natural surroundings.

L.M.: Do you write in nature or are you a “desk poet?”

 M.H.S.: I almost never sit down at my desk to stare at a blank screen. I still prefer pencil and paper to jot down the first line of a poem that catches my attention with its musicality or visual appeal. That opening phrase or first line often appears when I’m “doing nothing,” such as taking a walk in the woods or wading in the Atlantic or lounging on our deck overlooking the little lake out back or whiffing herbs to find one that smells just right for whatever happens to be in the refrigerator.

L.M.: Your current list of projects seems staggering. Atop writing your own work, which any writer can vouch is a full-time job in and of itself, you currently maintain The Poetry Editor blog and website through which you offer advice and critiques to fellow poets. How did this begin?

 M.H.S.: I delight in poets and poetry, and I like to teach, but I don’t have time to do the freebies poets frequently request (sometimes demand!) For a while I was getting calls on Sunday mornings and getting emails from around the world, asking me to give poems “a quick read,” which is impossible! I give free resources and tips on writing, revising, and editing on The Poetry Editor blog, but if poets ask me to “take a look” at their poems, I tell them I don’t do quick readings but will do thorough readings as their poetry deserves for the minimal fee found on my website. Poets who are willing to pay a bit for professional feedback usually want to learn and grow as poets. So, critiques give me a chance to encourage their strengths, correct errors and comment on specific areas that need improving. If I have a print copy, I scribble options and suggestions in the margins to help the poets recognize tendencies, revise the poems at hand and find ways to say what they want to say in their own poetic voice.

L.M.: Along with your duties as an editor, is it true that you also judge contests?

 M.H.S.: Yes, I judged a couple of poetry contests then about ten years ago began judging poems entered in the annual writing competition sponsored by Writers-Editors.com. That contest has been around for many years, and I’ve known the Director a long time too. She’s very conscientious, so the contest is well-run and entries are “blind,” which means I have no idea who enters what until winners are announced. If, however, I recognize a poem that I’ve critiqued or previously seen, it’s immediately disqualified.

L.M.: Every writer has a “favorite child”—a book from their publication history that they love more than any other. Which is yours?

 M.H.S.: This one! I’ve held on to my poems like an overprotective parent, letting them occasionally venture out into journals or e-zines but never quite able to get them together for a book even though I have enough “ready” pieces for more books than Living in the Nature Poem. As I’ve often said, I started writing poems in grade school but, as an adult, wrote everything except poetry. So I am thrilled, thrilled, thrilled to have a publisher like Hiraeth Press to whom I can entrust my poems.

L.M.: I hold on to my journals as well—dating back to childhood. A trunk under my bed is filled with my old writings; while my bookcases are filled with books that inspired me along the way. It would seem that great writers are voracious readers. To whom do you turn in your library when you need to decompress or be consoled?

 M.H.S.: Psalms and prophetic poems such as found in Isaiah console me by their spiritual affirmations and assurances. I’ve loved the Bible since I began to read, and the more I read it, the more connected and comforted I feel.

L.M.: As a spiritual writer, what do you think is the “message of the hour”—the truth that needs to be conveyed given the current challenges we face day-to-day?

 M.H.S.: I hope Christian publishers get bolder and we members of the church re-member the dis-membered Body of Christ needs our forgiveness, love and healing. We also need a clear eye and melodic voice that often comes in prayer and poetry. Look at the great poems of the past: War and his own people troubled King David into writing many of the Psalms. Society was a mess when Dante wrote The Divine Comedy. T.S. Eliot needed to come to grips with faith in God severely shaken between two world wars. We have similar conditions today, but now, even our weather is in upheaval! We’re in a tough time of economic, environmental, and political disturbances that call for poets to speak with clarity, honesty, beauty, and hope. If the titles of books, movies, and television programs – or the Mayan calendar – give us a clue, we’re also in a spiritually disturbing time when people are worrying about the after-life and wondering if the end times will come through a global disaster, collapse of the ozone, space aliens, or vampire fangs! I’d rather look for Jesus.

L.M.: What’s next? Any plans for reading events?

 M.H.S.: Thanks for asking, Leslie, and thank you for such good questions! I want to collect my Bible story-people-poems and religious poetry into at least one book and also schedule some poetry readings soon for Living in the Nature Poem.

 

 

Find out more about Mary’s forthcoming book by going to: www.hiraethpress.com. Look for Living in Nature PoemJune 15th

Laborious

The spider owns the air

on which the web is woven,

the bird that patch of sky.

Why does my work weigh me down?

In the beginning, the Creator made work

an invitation,

not the chore that later came 

when the garden got

left behind.

Rampant ideas

tangle untended.

Money mars motivation.

Time demands priority.

Deadlines jangle,

words juggle

to fit a perfect page.

Enough!

May this day be woven

of sky and air and Holy

Spirit.

Let God be

the center

of the air, the work, the

weave.

Despite the deep love and respect poets often have for nature, we must sometimes weather storms, deal with blight, and decide whether to take an injured cockroach to the vet or squish it! Living in rural Florida, Mary Sayler did the latter in this humorous poem from her forthcoming book, Living in the Nature Poem, to be published in mid-June.

Bugged

I was trying to do that big bug a favor, killing him

like that, but he wouldn’t stay killed – like one

of those grade C thrillers on TV where someone

murdered keeps getting up and has to be shot

full of holes again and again, like the whole plot.

When I first found the cockroach lying there,

he was already dead – belly up, feet curled in

classic funeral position and well prepared to be

carried off, with last rites, quite formally on a bier.

Perhaps if I’d had the good sense to uplift him

with proper gear beneath his backside, he wouldn’t

have winced or squirmed. However, I’ve now learned

that the slight enfolding pressure of toilet paper

against a palmetto bug’s chest performs the best CPR.

With his feeble feet flagging, “I am alive!”

my tolerance could not survive this rally.

I pushed, pressed, squished, smushed, and still

his quivering antenna thrilled at my tough touch.

Although I was much impressed by his hearty level

of arousal, I crushed him – hard – and watched

him flatten into ooze. There’s simply no excuse

for such behavior!  That bug had better get it

through his head, what’s dead is dead, and I’m

no savior.

Author Mary Harwell Sayler Reflects on Her Upcoming Book

As long as I can remember, I’ve been living in poetry – from hymn lyrics to a Child’s Garden of Verse to the anthologies, poetry how-to’s, and books of poems that now fill many bookshelves at home with the works of ancient poets, international poets, nature poets, and most of the contemporary Pulitzer-prized poets too. I like to read! I like to connect with poets and poetry. And I like to experiment with almost every form.

Often poems come to me with a musical phrase or an unexpected thought or sight, and I write down those opening words, expecting more to follow but having no idea what that will be. This spontaneous method does not lend itself well to writing a book of poems intentionally, but to exploring interests, playing with words, and noticing nature – as in, really noticing it.

For most of my life, I’ve lived in small towns or rural areas, but the strongest poetry-producing environment came when we moved to our present 100+-year-old home in “the boonies” of North Florida, reached by an unpaved road where the only honking traffic comes from sandhill cranes. Surrounded by a small thicket of woods, a small pasture, and a small lake, we see almost every bird imaginable – songbirds, water birds, and birds of prey – each of whom is a frequent flyer into my poems.

The morning habit of taking our coffee onto the deck also encouraged me to notice sights and sounds and poetic percussions that come when I’m most receptive, so nature poems began to make impromptu visits more and more frequently. I did not realize, though, just how often or how long I had been living in the nature poem until I discovered the nature poetry and environmentally themed nonfiction books published by Hiraeth Press. I really liked what I saw! And so I searched my published and unpublished pieces to see if I had enough nature poems for a book.

I did – not only “bird poems” but poems including human nature and natural bodies ranging in size from our own cells to the cellular bodies of stars aloft in the universe. So, even though Living in the Nature Poem began with my personal interest in poetry and anything living, I like to think the poems encourage us to connect with one other, the earth, and our own natural selves as a vital part of all creation and beyond.

A Brief Synopsis of Synapses

{An excerpt from Living in Nature Poem}

One hundred-billion neurons

call

to one another

without numbers.

Lively leaps of faith

repair line breaks

and make connections

we can only dream of:

to think, to feel,

to move, to heal.

Success progresses from

this strong neuronal song,

to live, to love, to be,

yes,

to belong.

Celebrate Earth Day & National Trails Week

The History of Earth Day: The first Earth Day on April 22, 1970, activated 20 million Americans from all walks of life and is widely credited with launching the modern environmental movement. The passage of the landmark Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, Endangered Species Act and many other groundbreaking environmental laws soon followed. Growing out of the first Earth Day, Earth Day Network (EDN) works with over 22,000 partners in 192 countries to broaden, diversify and mobilize the environmental movement. More than 1 billion people now participate in Earth Day activities each year, making it the largest civic observance in the world.

Enjoy National Trails Week: National Park Week started on April 21st! This week you can enjoy FREE admission to every park in the U.S.! If you are looking for a book to bring with you on your travels consider our recent released: Border Crossings, which follows Ian Marshall’s account of hiking the International Appalachian Trail. It’s a great book to read by the fire. Happy trails!

We give 1% of our annual profits to a eco-charity: In honor of Border Crossings our 2012 eco-charity choice is the International Appalachian Trail! Visit the IAT at: http://www.iat-sia.com/

Visit Our Bookstore

As a preview of this forthcoming release, we will be releasing a few poems from the collection over the coming weeks. We hope you enjoy!

Sleeping with the Universe

Beyond the action of creation

lies a great repose. You can

see this in a wildflower – the

closing of petals in tight lashes

against a lidded night – or in the

breaths between a burst of bird–

song: this lull unknown to highly

cultivated peoples, places, plants.

You can see it today in the falling

away, overnight, of leaves from

the live oak, exposing an amazing

maze of boles, terminal buds, and

holes for nesting in the dark. You

can see this in the gardenia – its

leaves cold-snapped into crackling

paper curled to protect the tender

growth – or in the dust flecks

resting on the pocked marble-top

table or in the hush of the porch

rocker or in the sag of a telephone

wire or in the pulsating of a star.

All attest to this universal need

known to artists, children, poets,

who, poised in mystery, must

watch and wait and wonder.

by Frank Owen | Excerpt from Courting the Wild: Love Affairs with the Land

Edited by Jamie K. Reaser and Susan Chernak McElroy

An ancient rock shelf in western Ireland.

A bubbling blue stone well in the Catskills.

A misty Shinto shrine in northern Colorado.

The cacophony of crickets in a cyprus swamp along the Natchez Trace in Mississippi.

A gurgling spring rising straight out of Scottish earth. An ice-cold forest pool in the Ozark foothills of Missouri.

These are some of the places that stir emotion within me. In contemplating the love of place, the spirit of place, and charged with the task of giving some form and shape to my love affair with the land, I quickly realized that there is no singular place that bears the weight of my affections, my attractions, my longing. In effect, when it comes to loving the land I am something of an “eco-harlot;” I am as promiscuous as they come.

Put another way, similar to the many women I have known and courted in my life, I have fallen in love many times with many places. Each of these places, with their distinct aromas, their vibrant light, their graceful curves, the “voice” of their waters, and their unyielding capacity to intoxicate me, has led me to a simple, yet profound, conclusion. Not unlike women—who are each goddesses in their own unique way—each place, every place, has the potential of leading us into an experience of expanded senses, deepening our awareness, and awakening within us an unbridled admiration for a location.

I’ve been blessed to have many relationships with sacred sites, beautiful places, landscapes of natural wonderment. There was, however, a first—a time and a place when and where I experienced the nascent stirrings of love for the land…what we might call Ecos rather than Eros.

Imagine a stretch of old growth forest. Yellow poplar. White oak. Black oak. Northern red oak. Hickory.

See large boulders pushing their way up through moss-covered earth. A fox scampers into a fern meadow. A kingsnake slithers across the ground and into a hollow made by the marriage of flint splinters and oak roots. A raccoon peers down from a hole twenty feet off the ground in a large pine tree. A late spring breeze blows through the forest. White dogwood blossoms tremor on branches like dancing stars.

Such was the view from the back porch of my childhood home in Atlanta, Georgia, the day that I consciously fell in love with the land. We lived at the end of cul-de-sac, nestled up against a rich, green canopy of trees. It was not a rural area, per se, but a few steps into the woods behind that creaky old house and the look and feel of the land made it seem as if you were hiking in the remote mountains of northern Georgia.

If you traveled less than half a mile in any direction, you would encounter civilization: railroad tracks to the west, Toco Hills shopping center to the north, a major thoroughfare to the east, and Emory University to the south. But to my six year-old sensibilities, the forest behind our home was a wild place of mystery and discovery. The adult world did not belong there. In my mind’s eye, those woods were the domain of magical beings, “night creatures,” and even Indians. But, of course, all of that is true.

Long before it became the thriving metropolis of Atlanta, the land was home to the Muskogee (Creek) and Eastern Tsalagi (Cherokee). Small tribal bands of Native American peoples had moved into the area nearly ten thousand years before. Over time, sophisticated Mississippian civilizations bearing corn agriculture established their presence in what has come to be known as the Southern Piedmont. It was here that these ancient peoples erected palisade villages and ceremonial mounds, many of which can still be seen across Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana. Explorer Hernando de Soto traveled across the Southern Piedmont range in the mid-1500s and recorded his impressions of these remarkable cities in his journals.

In 1821, these same lands were ceded to the State of Georgia by the Etowah Cherokee and the Middle Creek people, and under the swift pen of President Andrew Jackson, the so-called “Five Civilized Tribes” were forcibly removed to “Indian Territory” in Oklahoma; a deadly march that would come to be known as “The Trail of Tears.” Forty-three years later, in 1864, following a Union victory at the Battle of Chattanooga, General William Tecumseh Sherman would pay a visit to this area and burn it to the ground in his infamous “March to the Sea.”

On June 25, 1908, the area officially became known as “Druid Hills” by the DeKalb County Superior Court. No one knows exactly why this name was selected for this part of the Piedmont. My own working theory is that something about the old growth forests and the mists that frequent the woods in early spring and fall triggered something archetypal in the psyche of European descendants. Mist. Ancient trees. Druids. It makes perfect sense.

The Druid Hills area attracted some of Atlanta’s wealthiest and most influential families, including the Candlers—owners of Coca-Cola—whom Emory University’s Candler School of Theology is named for. Asa Candler, who received the original charter for the area from the Dekalb County Superior Court, is known to have headed the Druid Hills Corporation and shaped the community into an exclusive residential district. She not only oversaw strict building codes for residences, but also painstakingly sought to preserve the natural wonder of the area. Today Druid Hills is recognized on the National Register of Historic Places.

 * * *

 My first love affair with the land came one spring day in Druid Hills. It was a Saturday. For some reason, on this particular day, I skipped my most sacrosanct ritual of morning cartoons and headed straight into the woods. I informed my mother that I was “going on an expedition,” to “chart the territory for those who would follow in my footsteps.” My mother played along with my fantasy-game and made me a small pack lunch. My father made sure to impress upon me that if my “expedition ran out of supplies” that I could return to “base camp.”

The morning was cool—a slight chill in the air kissed my skin. Droplets of mist settled upon my checks and eyelashes. Typically, when I explored these woods as a child, I would venture down about fifty yards into the trees, and I would stop at a certain grove, at a specific tree. It was “my tree,” a “protector,” a haven, a place of wonderment in the terrain of my childhood mysticism.

I had never ventured any further into the woods. Although I might have claimed that I was being a good boy and attending to parental requests that I keep the back of our old house in sight, in all honesty, the real motivating factor for staying next to “my tree” was fear. Total fear. I was afraid of the forest beyond, and my fear had a source.

At night, I would sometimes sit out on the screen porch and I would hear all manner of sounds coming from the dark woods around us. My imagination would run wild. Snapping twigs. Hissings. The flap of wings. The haunting thunderous rumble of trains-on-tracks from the other side of the wood. The occasional howling of I-knew-not-what. The shriek of small creatures coming to an untimely end. That forest was not just a stand of trees in my childhood psyche it was another world; two worlds in fact—one that appeared to be soft and welcoming by day, and another place that became haunted with unknowns as soon as the torch of day was snuffed out.

But this particular day, I walked beyond the familiar. My feet took me into the uncharted territory that I was convinced was the domain of strange creatures with large fangs. Despite the presence of daylight I could easily conjure the images of all the dreaded creatures that my fears had crafted while I porch sat at night. Yet, something pushed me to walk deeper into the woods. Or, perhaps, like the Siren’s call of ancient myth, something beckoned me, lulled me, drew me ever nearer.

Something did come over me. Rather than gallivanting through the trees as I might “playing cowboys and Indians,” I moved at a snail’s pace, taking in every tiny detail of every leaf, every rock, every insect.

My morning slowly flowed into afternoon.

Afternoon gradually faded into dusk.

With the dusk I began to observe the first signs of impending summer: the blinking strobe of lightning bugs.

I stood in wonderment, observing the day-forest give itself up to the night. As the energy of night began to take hold, I realized that by having spent the entire day in the woods of Druid Hills even I had been initiated into night. I was just as much a part of the night forest as all of the teeming life I could hear skittering through the leaves. I felt my heart open to the place. I felt such kinship with everything around me, and such gratitude that this special place existed.

That day, I felt the place open to me as well. I had no language to describe it, only a deep sense that I was welcome and that I was, in fact, safe.

As I stood there, awash in the jungle-like sounds of the dark wood, I could feel a sensation begin to spin within me, though it was quite subtle at first. This sensation started as a basic appreciation for the place. The smell of the earth. The flickering of lightning bugs all around me. The cyclical rising and falling of the evening breeze, and how all of the sounds of the forest seemed to change with the breeze. It was as if everything were breathing, together, as one body.

Slowly, the subtle appreciation I felt for the place expanded. It expanded within me and, at the same time, felt as if it expanded me. I no longer felt like a stranger, nor was I an outside explorer on an “expedition.” Instead, all at once, I felt a feeling of having merged into a union with the land. I truly felt of the place, intimate and deeply bound. I suddenly ached with an emotion I had only associated with parents, grandparents, friends, and perhaps with a few pets. I felt love. Love for the place. Love for how the place caused me to feel. I felt in love, and I felt that the place loved me in return. The forest had always been vast and ominous to me before that day and night of deep communion, yet my love for the land had transformed my fear. This love caused me—just as any true love does—to feel bigger and better than I was before.

Though “my” tree still stands, that magical forest in Druid Hills is no longer there. It has since been bulldozed to the ground to make room for condominiums and university housing. Nonetheless, even now as an adult I can feel tenderness well up within me when I think of the place. It will always be the axis mundi in the mandala of my life at which my path of conscious spiritual awareness began.

Running like a thread throughout the journey of my life thus far (regardless of the different spiritual traditions or cultural forms I have explored) has been a core practice that runs backward through time to that special place. I never thought of it before now, but I’ll simply call it heart-opening. Whether in the fern-filled valleys of the Trossachs in Scotland, the luscious jungles of Costa Rica, or on a quiet path within a Mississippi pine forest, I open my heart to the spirit of place, allowing the look, feel, sound, and energy to work its love-spell over me.

_________________________________________________________

Courting the Wild: Love Affairs with the Land is currently available for purchase on Amazon, Barnes & Noble and other retailers world-wide.

BOOK REVIEW: Joys of a hike by two and the art of haiku

By THOMAS URQUHART | Read it on the Maine Sunday Telegraph »

In 1998, Ian Marshall had finished hiking, section by section, the venerable Appalachian Trail. A professor of English and environmental studies at Penn State Altoona, he also was becoming interested in haiku, those little quintessentially Japanese snippets of acute observation.

Then he heard about the International Appalachian Trail, the brainchild of former Maine Audubon director and state conservation commissioner Dick Anderson. (Full disclosure: I am a member of the IAT board, and also a former Audubon director.) The upshot became a ruminative walk from Mount Katahdin to Cap Gaspe in Quebec, at that time the IAT’s eastern terminus.

The hike was completed two weeks at a time over six consecutive years, and has resulted in “Border Crossings: Walking the Haiku Path on the International Appalachian Trail.”

The narrative unfolds day by day, with each chapter given an intriguing title beginning with “The Day of,” referring to something that happened, like “The Day of Hitching a Ride with Gravity” or that Marshall experienced, like “The Day of Sunlight Shaped Like an Hourglass” or didn’t experience, as in “The Day of No Moose.”

Marshall combines his experiences along the trail with insights into what makes a haiku. The book is studded with his personal efforts in that poetic form.

The inspiration for this exercise was the 17th-century poet and haiku master Matsuo Basho, who in 1689 made a similar journey into Japan’s northern mountains. Basho chronicled his experiences in “Narrow Road to the Deep North,” combining with his poems a travelogue full of literary criticism and cultural meditation. The book was Marshall’s constant trail companion, along with his partner (now wife; they married three weeks after reaching Cap Gaspe).

In their tent each evening, Marshall assiduously read Basho, logged their experiences as hikers, and rendered some of them into his own haiku (yes, “hike-u”; Marshall is an inveterate punster). The art of haiku is so tightly and invisibly tied to Japanese literary tradition that conveying the full meaning in English translation is all but impossible. When the form itself jumps the East-West divide, it must remake itself.

I learned a lot about haiku from “Border Crossings” – among other things, that it often contains a mixture of high and low, sublime and ridiculous. I am no expert, but my guess is that such a combination may be the hardest to pull off.

One of Marshall’s attempts that worked for me goes: “clear August night/wishing that first star/would hurry up and shine.” As Basho explained three centuries ago, “To jot down such things and relate them to others is one of the true treasures of the journey.”

Such “jottings” Basho also likened to the “delirium of a drunk or the rambling of one asleep,” and Marshall claims no more. He is delightfully self-effacing as he lays the fruits of his labor before the reader.

Did he succeed in his stated goal of learning to write a “decent haiku” while hiking the International Appalachian Trail? I generally agree with his verdict of “a few times,” although he is typically, and perhaps unnecessarily, harsh on himself. There is something really satisfying, as well as charming, about his final verse: “atop the vanquished mountain/a mosquito/atop my hat.”

Like its model, “Border Crossings” is a combination of literary discussion, poetry and travel journal. Some of Marshall’s descriptions of the unsung, unheroic aspects of hiking have a welcome freshness.

For example, early on he describes the first moment on a hike when “you are caught up in the rhythm of the walk, unaware not only of the weight of the pack on your back or the thud of each step on the trail but of any conscious thought at all.”

Descriptions capture the highlights of the trail with admirable conciseness (what would you expect from a writer of haiku?). And frankness: He is far from complimentary about the condition of stretches of the trail in Quebec (but that was 10 years ago).

Hiraeth Press (from the Welsh, signifying the “deep longing of the soul for one’s original homeland”) has produced an elegant book. It includes a glossary of haiku terms to help the reader with unfamiliar concepts.

However, the map at the beginning is inexplicably inadequate for so detailed a log. And the editors could have exercised a firmer hand with Marshall and his companion’s jokey badinage. It becomes a distraction and, in the end, an impediment.

We have all kept journals and noted in them the occasional bon mot that seemed quite priceless at the time but does not stand the test of time. Without them, the really interesting, appealing and original aspects of “Border Crossings” would have shone forth all the more, like “the raspberries we picked along the road to the lighthouse, beacons for our attention.”

Marshall continues: “Somehow, though, all these disparate tones blend together in a seamless whole, stitched together by our steps.” Well said.

Freelance writer Thomas Urquhart is a former director of Maine Audubon and author of “For the Beauty of the Earth.”

Praise for Border Crossings

“The International Appalachian Trail runs north from Mount Katahdin seven hundred miles to the end of the Gaspe Peninsula. Inspired by Basho, Ian Marshall hiked it for six summers, probing the poetics of haiku while exploring a vast and beautiful wilderness little known in the US. Marshall is an engaging trail companion and a superb story teller, with a self deprecating wit and sharp intellect that spice up his observations and ideas. Like Basho, he finds the miraculous in the common and elevates the humble walk into a spiritual practice, sprinkling his narrative with lovely original haiku that seem to have condensed in the moment, like droplets of dew. Backpackers will appreciate his pungent descriptions of life on the trail, and eco-critics will savor his abundant insights on poetry, nature, and culture. This lively book serves up a classic blend of high adventure, literary pilgrimage, and self discovery. It tastes as tart and fresh as wild raspberries.” —John Tallmadge, past-president of the Association for the Study of Literature and Environment and author of The Cincinnati Arch: Learning from Nature in the City

“The voice of Border Crossings is at once exuberant, philosophical, and provocative, exemplifying Joyce’s term ‘jocoserious.’ Forging across the boundaries between Maine, Quebec, and New Brunswick with his beloved companion M., Ian Marshall both reports on their mishaps, silliness, and sore feet and meditates on Basho’s encounter with the Shirakawa Barrier. In his own fresh and authentic haiku from the trail, he deftly registers affinities between the Japanese master and writers like Thoreau and Whitman while also recognizing the gaps and meetings that shape his own life. I feel personally grateful for this vital, illuminating book.” —John Elder, author of Reading the Mountains of Home and Pilgrimage to Vallombrosa

“In the tradition of Basho, Ian Marshall invites us to accompany him on a haiku journey to the North. And, like Basho, he provides us with an engaging account of his adventures in a literary work full of vivid details that evoke the joys and pains of an excursion through the northern forest. But Border Crossings is more than a journey along a trail. In the spirit of Basho and Thoreau, it is equally a journey into the mystery of our human relationship to nature and of the role of language in mediating, enhancing, and complicating that relationship. Sparked by daily readings from a weather-worn volume of Basho tucked into his pack, Marshall examines the aesthetics, philosophy, and practice of haiku, that most nature-oriented of poetic forms. Border Crossings is wonderfully written, at once wry and insightful, serious yet playful, and liberally spiced with mostly forgivable puns. Like a good trail it draws us forward with the promise of novelty,surprise, delight. In Border Crossings Ian Marshall presents the haiku path not as an exotic place of quaintly foreign and outmoded aesthetics, but as a vital, perhaps never-more-necessary, way of being in the world.” —Tom Lynch, author of Xerophilia: Ecocritical Explorations in Southwestern Literature and co-editor of The Bioregional Imagination: Literature, Ecology, and Place

Border Crossings is currently available on worldwide, including Amazon, Barnes and Noble and right here in the Hiraeth Press bookstore.

Read the first few chapters for free on Issuu.com!