INFINITE POSSIBILITIES: A HAIKU JOURNAL

By Laurie Wagner Buyer. (Filter Press LLC, 2009. P.O. Box 95, Palmer Lake, CO 80133) Paper $12.95. www.FilterPressBooks.com

In 1994, Laurie received the ‘Dry Crik Chapbook Award’ recognizing ‘the poetic achievement of a past contributor to Dry Crik Review – an individual whose work furthers the understanding & connection of man to the land’. That 1995 print run of BLUE HERON has long been out of print. INFINITE POSSIBILITIES is her fifth poetry title since then. ACROSS THE HIGH DIVIDE from Ghost Road Press received the Spur Award from the Western Writers of America in 2007.

The prospect of recouping printing costs for a collection of haiku is a real challenge for a small press in these times. Each of Laurie’s haiku is delightfully personal and insightful, but this is more than just haiku because Filter Press has designed the book to be an attractive journal as well. None of the pages of INFINITE POSSIBILITIES is numbered and each is nearly blank without lines, save for two or three of Laurie’s haiku at the top or the bottom, allowing readers lots of room to put their own thoughts down.

                                Give me one more chance
                                to dance naked in the moon light
                                capture childish joy.

The book may be aimed towards women writers, but I intend to keep my copy on top of my desk and try to use it regularly, let Laurie’s haiku trigger lines of my own first thing in the morning. She wrote these 365 haiku during a year while she and her late husband were ranching near Fairplay, each one a specific observation or little epiphany from that Rocky Mountain landscape.

                                Was that a blackbird
                                or just the squeaky gate hinge
                                in my husband’s hands?

INFINITE POSSIBILITIES makes a perfect gift for introspective friends and writers, to become a special place ready to record daily thoughts and events in more artful ways than ordinary journals.

                                Sun and wind on skin
                                not one single thought intrudes
                                in this seduction.

This is a refreshing collection consistent with Laurie’s unique ability to capture and get in touch with her natural surroundings, succinct perspectives to be digested and enjoyed.
– JCD