The Silence Within

This is the first collection of poems (haiku, tanka, haibun, and free verse) by Juanito Latorre Escareal whose poems have won contest awards in the United States, Canada, and Japan. Commentaries by Dhugal J. Lindsay (haiku poet/teacher/editor who is well-known in the international haiku community) on selected haiku are included, as published in Fuyoh/Rose Mallow, a Japanese haiku quarterly magazine where most of Juanito's haiku were published. The author also provides commentaries on...
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This is the first collection of poems (haiku, tanka, haibun, and free verse) by Juanito Latorre Escareal whose poems have won contest awards in the United States, Canada, and Japan. Commentaries by Dhugal J. Lindsay (haiku poet/teacher/editor who is well-known in the international haiku community) on selected haiku are included, as published in Fuyoh/Rose Mallow, a Japanese haiku quarterly magazine where most of Juanito's haiku were published. The author also provides commentaries on many haiku. The book also includes haibun about the author's trip to Japan in 2005 to attend the Hoshi-to-Mori International Tanka awards ceremony. Some of the haiku and tanka, and all the free-verse poems have not been previously published.

"A sneaker wave is one that catches you by surprise. Juanito L. Escareal's The Silence Within is a wave that you will want to have splash all over you. This book offers a haiku voice that you may not know, but one that sneaks up on you with a refreshing style and a new point of view. Commentary on the poems by Dhugal J. Lindsay and the author himself make this a unique collection of haiku and related poetry. Enjoy the wave!"--Michael Dylan Welch, haiku poet/advocate, publisher of Press Here haiku books, and founder of National Haiku Writing Month

"Juanito L. Escareal's The Silence Within is one of the most interesting collections of haiku and related genres that I've read in a while. Within each genre, the author's imagery, which utterly absorbs me with its graphic realism, is at times evocative, unexpected, and simply beautiful, as with these examples: 'Ides of March / the spread-winged heron / stabs its shadow'; 'Earth Day Festival / a Painted Lady flits from / cosmos to cosmos'; 'cut portions / of the catfish / still moving'; 'freezing night / back-to-back warmth / after our fight'; 'predawn / the moon harvests what is left / of the night.' These poems will keep The Silence Within close at hand for frequent dipping. Although the poet's work easily stands alone without them, the commentaries that appear throughout the book offer glimpses of Escareal's native land and roads traveled afar as well as paths of insight into the author himself."--Ferris Gilli, haiku poet/teacher, associate editor of The Heron's Nest, and former coeditor of World Haiku Review