East Wind Melts The Ice Other Stories

East Wind Melts the Ice & Other Stories are retellings of narrative fragments from modern Japanese literature and journalism by a contemporary American poet.

"To read East Wind Melts the Ice is to slip into a time stream that is both as long and sinuous as history and as ephemeral as the present moment. Drawing inspiration from the thousand year old history of Japanese poetic diaries, and form from the ancient Chinese almanac that she uses to contain her musings, Liza Dalby has accomplished the seemingly impossible task of translating the sensibility of the Heian Court of 11th century Japan into the context of contemporary America. The result is a stunning chronicle of the beauty of time passing and an evocation of the transient and whimsical nature of all things."—Ruth Ozeki, author of My Year of Meats and All Over Creation "I imagine Liza Dalby writing this book in an ancient library, a lion sleeping at her side, as in the paintings of Saint Jerome. As she collects and layers arcane and fascinating pieces of knowledge, she builds her own very personal almanac packed with the wonder of loving two cultures, the intense inner life of each season, and boundless curiosity of the scholar/child. This is a book to dip in and out of throughout the year."—Frances Mayes, author of Under the Tuscan Sun "Liza Dalby's memoir of the seasons is as fresh and captivating as springtime. A very special book."—Michael Pollan, author of The Omnivore's Dilemma "This beautiful book awakens the senses. A journal, an almanac of the seasons, and a series of reflections on ancient Eastern Chinese and Japanese cultures, here you will find subtle observations of rain and heat, tangerines, mulberries and paulownia trees, crickets and doves forming a rich tapestry as they are woven with evocative fragments of history—stories of geishas, of salesmen who sold bulk fireflies, of the wood that was used for kimono chests, of emptiness in the tea ceremony. Like a lush garden, this book is meant to savor."—Susan Griffin, author of The Book of the Courtesans

In this book, the first of a series, Robin D. Gill, author of the highly acclaimed Rise, Ye Sea Slugs! and Cherry Blossom Epiphany, the largest single-theme anthologies of poetry ever published, explores the traditional Japanese New Year through 2,000 translated haiku (mostly 17-20c). "The New Year," R.H. Blyth once wrote, "is a season by itself." That was nowhere so plain as in the world of haiku, where saijiki, large collections called of ku illustrating hundreds, if not thousands of briefly explained seasonal themes, generally comprised five volumes, one for each season. Yet, the great doyen of haiku gave this fifth season, considered the first season when it came at the head of the Spring rather than in mid-winter, only a tenth of the pages he gave to each of the other four seasons (20 vs. 200). Was Blyth, Zen enthusiast, not enamored with ritual? Or, was he loath to translate the New Year with its many cultural idiosyncrasies (most common to the Sinosphere but not to the West), because he did not want to have to explain the haiku? It is hard to say, but, with these poems for the re-creation of the world, Robin D. Gill, aka "keigu" (respect foolishness, or respect-fool), rushes in where even Blyth feared to tread to give this supernatural or cosmological season - one that combines aspects of the Solstice, Christmas, New Year's, Easter, July 4th and the Once Upon a Time of Fairy Tales - the attention it deserves. With G.K. Chesterton's words, evoking the mind of the haiku poets of old, the author-publisher leaves further description of the content to his reader-reviewers. "The man standing in his own kitchen-garden with the fairyland opening at the gate, is the man with large ideas. His mind creates distance; the motor-car stupidly destroys it." (G.K. Chesterton: Heretics 1905)

The Tale of Murasaki is an elegant and brilliantly authentic historical novel by the author of Geisha and the only Westerner ever to have become a geisha. In the eleventh century Murasaki Shikibu wrote the world’s first novel, The Tale of Genji, the most popular work in the history of Japanese literature. In The Tale of Murasaki, Liza Dalby has created a breathtaking fictionalized narrative of the life of this timeless poet–a lonely girl who becomes such a compelling storyteller that she is invited to regale the empress with her tales. The Tale of Murasaki is the story of an enchanting time and an exotic place. Whether writing about mystical rice fields in the rainy mountains or the politics and intrigue of the royal court, Dalby breathes astonishing life into ancient Japan.

This aptly named fiction anthology—tomo means “friend” in Japanese—is a true labor of friendship to benefit teens in Japan whose lives were upended by the violent earthquake and tsunami of March 11, 2011. Authors from Japan and around the world have contributed works of fiction set in or related to Japan. Young adult English-language readers will be able to connect with their Japanese counterparts through stories of contemporary Japanese teens, ninja and yokai teens, folklore teens, mixed-heritage teens, and non-Japanese teens who call Japan home. Tales of friendship, mystery, love, ghosts, magic, science fiction, and history will propel readers to Japan past and present and to Japanese universes abroad. Edited and with a foreword by Holly Thompson, Tomo contributing authors include Naoko Awa, Deni Bechard, Jennifer Fumiko Cahill, Liza Dalby, Megumi Fujino, Andrew Fukuda, Alan Gratz, Katrina Toshiko Grigg-Saito, Suzanne Kamata, Sachiko Kashiwaba, Kelly Luce, Shogo Oketani and Leza Lowitz, Ryusuke Saito, Graham Salisbury, Fumio Takano, and Wendy Tokunaga, among others. Through understanding comes compassion and the desire to help; portions of the proceeds of Tomo will be donated to ongoing relief efforts for teens in Japan. Holly Thompson is a longtime writing teacher and resident of Japan and author of the young adult verse novel Orchards, which was nominated for a 2012 YALSA/ALA Best Fiction for Young Adults award. She serves as the regional advisor for the Tokyo chapter of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators.

Although the seasons have been a perennial theme in literature and art, their significance for philosophy and environmental theory has remained largely unexplored. This pioneering book demonstrates the ways in which inquiry into the seasons reveals new and illuminating perspectives for philosophy, environmental thought, anthropology, cultural studies, aesthetics, poetics, and literary criticism. The Seasons opens up new avenues for research in these fields and provides a valuable resource for teachers and students of the environmental humanities. The innovative essays herein address a wide range of seasonal cultures and geographies, from the traditional Western model of the four seasons––spring, summer, fall, and winter––to the Indigenous seasons of Australia and the Arctic. Exemplifying the crucial importance of interdisciplinary research, The Seasons makes a compelling case for the relevance of the seasons to our daily lives, scientific understanding, diverse cultural practices, and politics.

Eastern waterfowlers, who know the black duck best, regard this big dusky bird as the top game bird against which all other ducks are measured. In parts of the Northeast this feeling of affection is so strong that in some circles only the black rates the name of "duck." All other species, even the famed canvasback, are "coots," "fish ducks," or are known by even less complimentary titles. Much of this devotion is justified. Without the black duck, wildfowling in much of the thickly settled East would be an unrewarding pastime. Big as a mallard, as wary as a Canada goose, and as handsome in full plumage as any duck that flies, the black duck fills a place on the American sporting scene that could be filled by no other waterfowl. Here is the dramatic story of the life of the black duck, from the time the broods hatch on the spruce-lined ponds of eastern Canada, through the hazardous flights to the southern wintering areas, to the return of the paired birds to the nesting grounds in spring. It is a story told authoritatively by a Canadian scientist whose adult life has been spent in studying the black duck from the fastnesses of its northern breeding grounds in Labrador and Ungava Bay, to the marshes of Louisiana. In this book are facts on the black and other species of waterfowl that will be new to many students of waterfowl as well as to sportsmen. Here also are recommendations for perpetuating the flights of these magnificent game birds.

Prolegomena to a Carnal Hermeneutics introduces the importance of body politics from both Eastern and Western perspectives. Hwa Yol Jung begins with Giambattista Vico’s anti-Cartesianism as the birth of the discipline. He then explores the homecoming of Greek mousike (performing arts), which included oral poetry, dance, drama, and music; Mikhail Bakhtin’s dialogical body politics; the making of body politics in Hannah Arendt, Emmanuel Levinas, and Luce Irigaray; Marshall McLuhan’s transversal and embodied philosophy of communication; and transversal geophilosophy. This tour de force will be an engaging read for anyone interested in the above thinkers, as well as for students and scholars of comparative philosophy, communication theory, environmental philosophy, political philosophy, or continental philosophy