Poet and Artist Paul Yates will be making his new poetry book a complementary download throughout the month of May. Instead of buying the work, readers will be requested to make a donation to essential services charities.
The book entitled “Le Mot Juste” is a collection of one hundred and fifty five haiku written over the past two years by Yates.
It will be available for reading on a complimentary basis during the month of May 2020 at www.paulyatesstudio.com. Readers will be asked to make their own donation to a charity of their choice.
Haiku – which is a short poem made of three phrases originating in Japan – was the first poetic form that Paul Yates wrote in after discovering a book of haiku at his local library when he was nine years old.
This will be Yates’s tenth publication of poetry and his first for five years.
Paul Yates Patron Lord Glentoran comments:
“During our present confinement at home because of the Covid-19 pandemic, Lady Glentoran and I have found the haiku meditations of Paul Yates intriguing, charming and inspiring. At this difficult time it is good to remind ourselves of the human gifts of imagination and wonder.
This collection was written over the past two years and reveals the poet’s daily journal as he travels in mind and body; A trick shot played at billiards, a sunset, snow melting on a church bell, memories of taking tea with Audrey Hepburn at Claridge’s, of taking photographs with Terence Donovan in Soho.
It is my hope that readers will respond by making a personal donation to their chosen essential services charity in thanks for their outstanding heroism in the face of the Covid – 19 pandemic.”
Those familiar with Yates’s work will not be surprised that he dared to break a golden rule by adding titles to his haiku, indeed the last piece in this collection consists of only a title, THROWING A STICK FOR LOUP-GAROU, inviting each of us to write our own haiku in response.
Readers can share in Yates’s telling observations and visions through the publication of Le Mot Juste out on May 1 at www.paulyatesstudio.com. This will be followed with a release on Amazon on June 1, 2020