No Choice but to Follow da book/CD combo has arrived!

I’m not a poet, so I don’t really know what it’s like to write poetry. Much less, poetry undah presshah. The new book No Choice but to Follow contains 48 poems written over the course of a year by Jean Yamasaki Toyama, Juliet Kono, Ann Inoshita, and Christy Passion. Each had one week to write a new poem using the last line of the previous poet’s poem as their title or first line. All four are accomplished poets on their own, but they accepted the challege and stuck with it throughout 2008. What is really fascinating though is their commentary included in the book about how each poem got written, what they did when they got stuck, the emotional highs and lows, and why some of them are saying, "Never again!" And there’s an added dividend, an audio CD to accompany the book. You can hear the poems read aloud by the authors and how the renshi are linked.

There are three readings coming up in the next few weeks. Don’t miss them. The Wine and Words event at KCC kicks it off on April 28th. Limited seating. Details on the main page.