From the Spider Bone Diaries: Poems and Songs

"Like a collage of moving images, From the Spider Bone Diaries, Poems and Songs provides a visual as well as a literary and lyrical feast. Readers will immediately sense movement and varied landscapes in its many poetic genres. The words herein can be sung, chanted, intoned, splashed on sidewalks, painted on murals, scrawled on walls, performed by an ensemble of musicians and actors, or silently absorbed. "Spider Bone Diaries can be revisited often. Like a hitchhiker, the reader may want to stay on for all or part of the ride, for the destinations are many and the scenes varied. While never the "accidental tourist," the poet provides images from personal experiences viscerally drawn from experiences in Asia, Europe, Oceania, and the continental United States. "Moving from humor to sweetness, from suffering to sarcasm, from darkness to epiphany, a stanza, a moment, a line, even just a word lingers in the reader's mind like a fragrance stimulating a stream of memories. "This is a book produced by one who is experienced; it is a collected work which heralds tomorrow's poetic hieroglyphics: the spoken, the written, the painted word that takes flight like a sketch, a storyboard, a film, a video, a song. From the Spider Bone Diaries celebrates the capricious graces of the muses themselves." --- from the Foreword by Dennis Kawaharada, Honolulu, June 2000 "The finest poetry is a gift of exuberant experience rendered as subtle, and soaring, enlightenments.... Richard Hamasaki's recent collection of poems and songs is just such a gift." --- Honolulu Advertiser "Hamasaki's work gathers into itself traditions, ancient and contemporary ... and returns them in passionate new forms." --- Honolulu Weekly