Paul Chambers — Touchstone Distinguished Books Award Winner 2021
Paul Chambers is the recipient of a Touchstone Distinguished Books Award for 2021 for his volume The Dry Bones (New Mills, UK: Red Ceilings Press, 2021).
Commentary from the Panel:
Paul Chambers’ third book of haiku is a beautifully written, deeply reflective collection that rewards re-reading. A quiet book of closely observed moments and small movements, it reads as an orchestrated piece.
The spare, abstract cover, with its suggestion of landscape, sets the tone for the poems within. Blank pages separate 86 haiku into four unnamed sections — an unusual strategy that suits this collection. The blank section breaks offer the most minimal guidance, inviting the reader to pause before moving to the next group of poems. The haiku that appear immediately before each blank page linger in the mind and reinforce the power of the moment.
quieter now
than before it came
first snow
Throughout the book, care has been given to the sequencing and placement of haiku. The resonance across poems on a page creates larger moments and images, as in these haiku . .
goshawk’s cry
deep under snow
the road turns
freeing itself
of itself
the thawing stream
These are haiku that heighten the senses and invite contemplation. One is simultaneously surprised and struck by the realization, “yes . . . it is like that.”
after rain
the river unreeling
warbler song
just enough rain
to darken the scent
of the pine woods
There are moments of bleak beauty in nature.
gathering dusk
a broken antler
in the leaf litter
Chambers understands the power of understatement, and some haiku provide just a suggestion of story.
night bus . . .
a handprint fills
with moonlight
Only haiku can frame a parent’s love — and the attentiveness it commands — in this kind of way . . .
magnolia scent . . .
sunlight in the hairs
along my son’s ears
or conjure something magical out of a common childhood experience.
with each throw
the boy’s stone lands
in the centre of the universe
In The Dry Bones, Paul Chambers has given us a stunning collection of haiku that honor the truth of things as they exist and our greater connectedness.
See the complete list of winners of both Individual Poem Awards and Distinguished Books Awards in the Touchstone Archives.
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your poems echo in the soul! congratulations on this wee-deserved honor.
correction:
well-deserved honor
Congratulations. Stunning poems, each one. Thank you so very much for sharing.
fine lines
well written, Paul
– again!
Congratulations Paul! I found this in the Haiku Foundation Digital Library which is a great place to read haiku books. Or you can buy it here: https://www.theredceilingspress.co.uk/product-page/the-dry-bones-paul-chambers
Brilliant poems!
Congratulations to dear Paul! Great achievement and honor.
Thanks dear Jim for sharing this elegant commentary on the prize winning book by the panel.
Beautiful work – richly deserved!
Well deserved… a true Master of his art.