Kyoto Sakura Tanka by Andrew Lansdown’s is a collection of poems and photographs that pay tribute to the ancient capital of Japan, Kyoto, during the cherry blossom (sakura) season.
A busy author, Kyoto Sakura Tanka is Australian Andrew Lansdown’s fifteenth published collection of poetry and his first published collection of photography.
The poems are written in tanka (waka), an ancient form traditional to Japan. Tanka’s are thirty-one-syllable poems, five lines long.
Lansdown has some lovely imagery in his work, for example, ‘Windows on the water’ where “pale cherry petals on the old canal drift across rectangles of light”
But I confess tanka is not my favourite form, and while I appreciate the dedication to constraint the form imposes, on the whole Kyoto Sakura Tanka fails to win me over to tankas charms. Some images feel overwritten in order to get the syllables right.
The concept of including photos with poetry is debatable. In order to earn justify their inclusion they need to really earn their keep. The photos in this collection are undoubtedly good travel snaps, but they need to be more than this to really zing.
The fleeting and fragile nature of the cherry blossom is captured in part by Lansdown in Kyoto Sakura Tanka, but overall this collection of over 100 poems is on the lengthy side and could benefit from some judicious editing.
REVIEWER: Heidi Bailey-North
TITLE: Kyoto Sakura Tanka
AUTHOR(S): Andrew Lansdown
RRP: $26.99