Clothes To Go Out In is a collection of haibun, a hybrid form combining prose with haiku. These thirty-one vignettes weave together a tapestry of Chula's life-from clothes for all occasions to a collage of memories, experiences, and emotions that have shaped her identity. Both humorous and somber, the haibun in Clothes To Go Out In show us "how light and shadow are part of the same fabric, and the line between them is filled with wonder."
"These haibun, with their precise prose and startling leaps of haiku and tanka, are akin to colorful garments pinned together on a clothesline-often subtly linking to one another like renga verses. A wonder-full read!" -Penny Harter, author of Keeping Time: Haibun for the Journey
"In
Clothes To Go Out In, Maggie Chula invites readers to accompany her in recollections of a life fully engaged-days of budding promise, of loss and poignancy, of mysterious dreams and random acts of kindness."
-Rich Youmans, editor of contemporary haibun online"Like traditional Japanese haibun, the haibun in
Clothes To Go Out In do their quiet work through the clear language of distilled prose combined with their attendant haiku that shape each story with a further revelation-gently, or whimsically, or with a sharp sting. Chula is a storyteller, songstress, seer."
-Joanna Rose, author of A Small Crowd of StrangersBorn in Northfield, Massachusetts, Margaret Chula has traveled overland through Asia, lived in England and Japan, and now makes her home on the Portland skyline. She has published fifteen collections of poetry including, most recently, Weeding the Labyrinth. Her haibun memoir, Firefly Lanterns: Twelve Years in Kyoto, was awarded a 2022 NYC Big Book Award in Multicultural Nonfiction. Maggie has given readings and lead workshops at haiku conferences throughout the United States, as well as in Poland, Ireland, Peru, Canada, and Japan. She has also served as poet laureate for Friends of Chamber Music, president of the Tanka Society of America, and on the Advisory Board of the Center for Japanese Studies at Portland State University. Grants from Oregon Literary Arts and the Regional Arts and Culture Council have supported collaborations with artists, musicians, photographers, and dancers. Kim Stafford says of her work: "She has long been a word shaman connecting the wild world to the human heart."
