Climbing Mole Hill: An Anthology of Haiku and Haiga for the Republic of Mole Hill

First published in the “Briefly Reviewed” section of Frogpond 39:3, Autumn 2016, page 123.

Climbing Mole Hill: An Anthology of Haiku and Haiga for the Republic of Mole Hill edited by Lidia Rozmus (2015, Deep North Press, Santa Fe, New Mexico). Haiga by the editor. Introduction by Michele Root-Bernstein. 24 pages, 3½×11 inches, black-and-white card slip cover, white card stock, accordion-folded. ISBN 978-1-929116-21-8. $15.00 from Lidia Rozmus at lidiarozmus@att.net.

This art book is a marvelous treat for the hand and eye. First you slide it out of its long slip cover, then unfold its accordion-like pages (like the book Wonder that Lidia Rozmus designed for David Burleigh in 2014). It stretches out to almost three feet wide, and you could set it up on a table for display. Each “page” offers one to four haiku by each of 18 poets, together with a haiga featuring one of the poems on that page (it would be lovely to see each haiga at a larger size). With their poems, the poets visit the Republic of Mole Hill, which is both a real place and an imaginary kingdom (or rather, republic) near Chicago in Vernon Hills. A poem by the editor: “from my balcony / everything I need / I see.” All of us can visit this magic land through the poems in this remarkable collection.