Description: Poet Ray McNiece and photographer Tim Lachina team up to create a stunning book of haiku and black-and-white photography.
Review Quotes:
In Breath Burns Away, haiku master Raymond McNiece transfigures the daily ordinary into snippets of astonishment, gratitude, passion, political disenchantment, and razor-sharp humor.
thank you mosquito / for reminding me I'm in skin / still alive
sadhu walking beach / plastic bag of chai in one hand / cell phone in the other we're both old farts / but at least you are / four farts older
between bright star / and atom inside, I spin -- / breath burns away
Beautifully illustrated by Timothy Lachina's black-and-white photos, and filled with word-snapshots of his global travel and his love for Cleveland, McNiece's Breath Burns Away will gift you with new eyes for a fascinating world.
-- Dianne Borsenik, author of Raga for What Comes Next
publisher of NightBallet Press
Ray McNiece uses the Jack Kerouac method of haiku writing to transport us in time and place. Remaining in the moment he challenges us to revision the world. Particularly strong is the Basho sequence and his fine essay "Plop! The Haiku Moment." This book is a Zen blessing.
-- Larry Smith, author of Tu Fu Comes to America
Ray McNiece's crystalline haiku, like snowflakes, land on the ear and the tongue and melt into meaning.
-- George Bilgere, author of Blood Pages