I Didn't Know Kyoto

Sheppard Ranbom reveals-through his romance with Japan-how memory and imagination can produce moments of clarity that illuminate our failings and desires, our search for beauty through suffering.

"I composed these poems in a Japanese style, favoring immediacy, brevity, and unabashed feeling, to evoke loss and the fleetingness of life. The style also accentuates the intuitive and impulsive aspects of human nature, which can take instantaneous measure of the world and reveal facets of experience and ourselves we tend to hide. Though my own work originates more in memory than in the moment, no matter the language of creation or approximation, or differences of belief, or the gulf across years, poetry has one mission: to speak to and through the heart." (from the Afterword.)

Sheppard Ranbom is the author of two books of poetry: King Philip's War, a book-length poem that tells the story of the genocide of the New England Algonquians, and I Didn't Know Kyoto, a series of poems written in a Japanese style that explores the author's romance with Japan and-based on an ill-fated love affair-the beauty that can be found in suffering. In addition, he has recently completed a play-The Love Suicides at Takayama-and two additional poetry books-a novella in verse and a collection of poems written over the past 20 years-that will be forthcoming. He is the co-founder, with his wife, Mary-Mack Callahan, of CommunicationWorks, LLC a national public-affairs firm focused on education, higher education, workforce, and civil rights issues based in Washington, DC that he has led for nearly 30 years. He began his career as an assistant to the book review editor at the national publication, Books & Arts, and then as a journalist focusing on schools and higher education. Through his long career in journalism and public affairs, he wrote an award-winning book-length series of articles, Schooling in Japan: The Paradox in the Pattern for Education Week, and countless reports and whitepapers for his clients on scores of issues in K-12 and higher education. He continues to ghostwrite articles for his clients that appear in national and regional newspapers, magazines, and trade publications. He also has written extensively about theatre and the fine arts, including an introduction to the paintings of American landscape artists Michele Martin Taylor and Andrei Kushnir. To read his thoughts about poetry, literature, authors, and life-and occasional works in progress-visit his blog, https: //www.sheppardranbom.com/blog