"BOUQUET OF ROSES" haiku by Maki Starfield. Translated in Italian by Lidia Chiarelli. Review by Postremo Vate.

Eros, Feeling and Poetry in Maki Starfield's Haiku

Meeting the delicate and passionate soul of a poetess is always wonderful, it is a kind of meeting that  instills deep chills likely to leave a mark.

If the poetess, moreover, has a beautiful soul like Maki Starfield, the meeting is really wonderful. A gentle and delicate encounter of graceful verses... which the Japanese poetess has transfused into the short and effective form of haiku.

This poetic collection of hers, titled Bouquet of Roses, is a very sweet caress that descends into our soul, it is a splendid ray of sunshine that pours out harmony and ecstasy in the practical reality of our daily lives.

I read with great interest these verses which are, at the same time, so simple and so touching.

The soul of the poetess (and her Japanese soul) opens up, like a splendid and scented flower, to the enchantment of Poetry.

Maki’s Poetry in its incisiveness  of short, carefully weighed verses, almost dug - word after word - into the impervious mines of the heart, conveys a spiritual  sentimental almost  intoxicating vision to us.

The collection of poems is basically divided into four parts: one dedicated to eros, one to love, one to cats and one to flowers. A perfect harmony which dissolves into a succession of idyllic and sensual, sweet and ineffable lyrical illuminations, that make us daydream and make our souls - always eager for Beauty and Harmony -  vibrate

roses

embracing the shape

of our ecstasy

Here  passion and  eros are condensed in simple but extremely involving verses, able however to convey the surge that overwhelms the soul of the poetess and, at the same time,  the sensations she wants us to perceive through the perfect brevity of the verse, suitable to enclose an entire microcosm.

Love is a miracle that is renewed every day, every time two hearts and two bodies come together in supreme ecstasy, opening the doors to a new dawn, which becomes a real harbinger of ecstasy and ineffable emotions, as perfectly written in this haiku:

it's a new day

it's a new dawn –

our love made

The poetess's soul vibrates in the light of passion and feeling: fires that light up in our hearts, flames that illuminate the narrow spaces of our ephemeral limited world.

The kisses under the moon, the lace linen, the sweet caresses in the quiet of the night, are all elements that, prodigiously, we find in these haiku so simple and so intense, so ready to surprise and delight us.

The book deals with  that wonderful love that can be seen not only in the relationship between man and woman and between human beings but also in the Creation that surrounds us and of which we are part, that Creation that hosts noble animals such as the cat and  the treasures of the plant world such as flowers, two other elements that are found in this precious poetry collection.

The cat, a magical and sensual animal, of incomparable beauty, that the poetess portrays in its sinuous forms, in its ability to move... with elegance and refinement, even if stray:

roof tiles

a homeless cat

walks with the moon

Three verses that offer us a wonderful "catlike" vision, a cat that looks almost like an elf from the rooftops and that embodies the symbol of the free spirit, of vitality... who'd rather be a stray than live imprisoned under harsh constraints. The cat, an animal with a mysterious look, full of charm, with those inquisitive eyes that scrutinize our souls:

fireflies

on a big face

of a cat

And then there are the flowers, to which the last section of this collections  is dedicated. From roses to sunflowers (with hints also to Van Gogh), the flowers are the fragrant and beautiful protagonists of the last section of soft and delicate haiku, which are able to transmit us all the persuasive charm, made of petals, corollas, scents and …such incomparable beauty.

With flowers we make beautiful bouquets: here, however, poetess Maki Starfield is able to offer us a "bouquet of poems", that is, haiku, which never wilt and which continue, day after day, to give us their intense and sweet scent...

in short, the scent of feeling, of the soul's song, of the heart's idyll, of that wonderful all-human wonder that we call Poetry, a miracle of which Maki Starfield turns out  to be a seductive and delightful messenger, with a soul full of light, love, passion and fascinating feelings.

POSTREMO VATE (Pinerolo - To- Italy)