March 27, 2011

Spring Comes Suddenly: Raising awareness and money for Japanese relief efforts

Spring Comes Suddenly is a collection of haiku poetry I wrote from 2004-2005 while we were living in Japan. Stuart and I published 20 copies of this book in late 2005, each one with hand stitched binding and Japanese paper along the spine with a cherry-blossom pattern. It was the first of two publications by Pickle Me This Press, and we sold our entire lot. The digital version of the book came about last year when Stuart expressed interest in learning more about e-publications, but settled for making a PDF version when he learned that e-pub wasn’t great for poetry.

We are now offering free downloads of Spring Comes Suddenly in order to raise money and awareness for Japanese earthquake relief. Because Japan was once our home, it has been particularly dismaying to learn about the devastation the country currently faces. Knowing Japan as we do, we also know that few other nations would be better equipped to deal with and recover from disaster, but we still can’t help wanting to do our part.

Please accept this book as a token of thanks for any donation you may have already made to the Canadian Red Cross Japan Relief Fund, or to the charities highlighted by the Toronto to Japan effort. If you have not yet made a contribution, please use Spring Comes Suddenly as an incentive to do so. I make no claims to be a poet, but the book is a journal of our Japanese year, and a love letter to a country that provided us with so much kindness and generosity.

(Click on the image to launch the PDF of Spring Comes Suddenly, or right click and select “Save Link As” to save a copy)