Modern Haiku, Volume 53.1, Winter-Spring 2022.

by Michele Root-Bernstein

Water and Stone: Ten Years of Art and Haiku by Annette Makino (Arcata, Calif.: Makino Studios, 2021). 123 pages, 8” x 10”. Matte four-color cards covers; perfectbound. ISBN 979-8-519290-1-42. Price: $24.99 from online booksellers.

This first full-length collection presents fifty haiga and fifteen autobiographical haibun by a poet whom Stephen Addiss places “among the leaders of haiku painting.” Makino organizes her work seasonally, interspersing linked forms in such a way as to tell a story of who she is. The haibun offer peeks into her family life, her love of art, and various of her philosophical musings in an engaging, down-to-earth manner. Considering “the (very) long view” of all our daily strivings, she remarks, “in geological time, all this effort will amount to approximately zip.” What matters in the end, “is the energy we put out into the world as we do our work. Call it love.” Love, indeed, is what seems to inspire Makino’s haiga, visually rendered in Japanese watercolors and sumi ink in an unpretentious style that illustrates and interprets her charming haiku. This reader’s favorites include “fog-shrouded coast / we listen / to the view,” superimposed on a foggy scene; “lines of foam /  over and over the sea / writes its story,” juxtaposed to some seagulls at the tide line; and “cowlick / some part of me / still wild,” linked to a close-up of pink wildflowers.