Kyoto: The Forest Within the Gate

Poetry. Art. This book of haiku and photographs was conceived as a gift for poet Edith Shiffert on entering her ninety-first year. Shiffert has lived in Kyoto, Japan since 1963. She is the author of twelve collections of poetry, and has co-translated several volumes of Japanese poetry. Photographer John Einarsen, whose black-and-white images of Kyoto appear here paired with Shiffert’s haiku, is the founding editor of Kyoto Journal. He writes in the preface: Edith’s writings, which contain Buddhist and Taoist sensibilities, yet remain totally individualistic, have taught me over the years to see Kyoto, nature, and existence from a new and profound perspective…I suspect that her poems and my photographs were essentially approached in a similar way: mostly by walking, with little or no purpose in mind, and simply recording impressions just as they were encountered.