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Danielle's New Book


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This chapbook of Japanese short-form poetry includes haiku, senryu, tanka and haiga, illustrated throughout with the author's color photographs. Taken as a whole, the collection of nearly 70 brief poems and 26 pictures traces a larger life-journey, ranging geographically from New York City to the Catskill Mountains, then to the dramatic Bold Coast of DownEast Maine. On the way, the elements shine a light on an inner journey as well, through moments of discovery, appreciation, love, loss — in nature, and with our various relations: human, animal, vegetable, mineral.

Praise for the book includes:

o   “Exactly the right words in exactly the right place! [headline]: I find I must reshuffle the positions of my Haiku Gods and put Ms. Woerner at the top. –T.A. McLaughlin, author of the acclaimed sci-fi/fantasy series The Love of the Tayamni

o   “This little book of poetry is packed with delightful verse…I enjoyed the journey from melancholy to whimsical to stoic, and more….[It] uniquely encapsulates the poet’s life while also welcoming everyone in. I encourage you to go. Allison Wells, Senior Director of Communications & Public Affairs, National Resources Council of Maine

o   “Fun Strange Landscapes [headline] … an entertaining read that stands up well to scrutiny—a stylishly produced, poetic reflexion of the author’s geographc surroundings and related intimate moments over time.” R.W. Watkins, Editor/Publisher, Eastern Structures

 

The author writes: "'I Never Promised You a Cherry Orchard' was a working title with an intention to create it for over a decade. As the book gradually took shape on the page during the pandemic quarantine of 2020-21, the individual elements began to suggest a larger story, in the outward movement from Manhattan to the mid-Hudson Valley and now to a small town on the Maine coast.

"I started writing tiny poems a dozen years ago," she continues, "at first to recover from having generated a 50,000-word NaNoWriMo novel manuscript in 30 days. After that torrent of prose had exhausted itself--and me--I couldn't stand to jot down even a few thoughts in a journal. So I began playing with haiku as a shorthand aide-memoire. Poems in other traditional Japanese forms followed, as a love affair grew."

 

Danielle Woerner's haiku and senryu have been published in the arts and culture magazine Chronogram; the "Three Nations Anthology: Native, Canadian & New England Writers" (Resolute Bear Press, 2017); a 2021 online anthology of Sakura (cherry blossom) haiku commissioned by the Consul-General of Japan in Toronto; and she is a regular contributor to the journal Eastern Structures, dedicated to traditional Asian forms of poetry in English. As a journalist, her features and op-ed pieces have appeared in Classical Singer, New Music Connoisseur, Hudson Valley Magazine and Newsweek. She wrote for several years for the Woodstock Times in NY, and her reporting for weekly newspapers in Maine was recognized in 2018 by the National Federation of Press Women.

Danielle is also a BMI-affiliated songwriter, and the principal artist and executive producer of two acclaimed CDs of 20th-century American art song and chamber music on the Albany and Parnassus labels. She holds a B.A. in Music from Bard College and a Master's Certificate in Songwriting from the Berklee College of Music's Berkleemusic division. She joined the Hudson Valley Haiku-kai, currently meeting online, in 2013. "I Never Promised You a Cherry Orchard" is her first published collection of poems.

 

A sample page from the book...