Footprints

footprints by nick avis. King’s Road Press, 1994, 16 pages, paperback, 5½ by 8½ inches. $2.00 postpaid from Marco Fraticelli, King’s Road Press, 148 King’s Road, Pointe Claire, Quebec, Canada H9R 4H4. This book is the sixth in Fraticelli’s Hexagram Series (the cover of footprints shows hexagram 52, “resting”). As with other books in this series, this one displays some of the featured poet’s work at its finest. Avis is one of the continent’s best writers of love haiku, and in addition to many telling love poems, you’ll find two of his excellent visual poems, and several other haiku that give you a taste of Avis’s range. This book is a simply printed yet elite representation of Avis’s fine haiku, a teaser for what you can enjoy if you explore his other books, abandoned outport (1984), you aim to love (1988), and the truly excellent bending with the wind (1993). Two favourite poems:

for a moment

two leaves touch

as they fall

freshly fallen snow

opening a new package

of typing paper