ROSES ARE SILENT: Bara wa Shizuka

Tamiko Dooley opens her collection Bara wa Shizuka with Tsuru...making a crane out of paper, which establishes the cultural context... Dooley's poems of love, loyalty, chance & change are...a kind of origami, anecdote folded into image, word-sound folded into personal recollection... Roses are Silent might be read as a contemporary pastoral. 'Not for me the serenity of pasture... Take me on a train into Tokyo'. John Greening, poet, critic and playwright.Balanced between languages, cultures & traditions, Tamiko Dooley's Roses are Silent is filled with family memory and the tangled cats' cradles of the sensual world, in all its terror and joy... Dooley and her delicate word music make for a persuasive, propulsive guide.Adam Horovitz, poet, performer and editor.These pieces transcend location & straddle cultures. Each poem is a delicate work that explores the beautiful, fleeting, & difficult moments, in daily experience; capturing a unique sensuality that reminds us of the bittersweet nature of life.Dr Michael Tsang, Programme Director & Lecturer in Japanese Studies, Birkbeck UniversityDooley brings an exquisite sense of the potential in different forms...to a meditation on lives & loves... There is both formal mastery here & a sharp, sympathetic sense for human confusion. Tell me how it happened; so she does. Luke Pitcher, Fellow & Tutor in Classics; Associate Professor in Classical Languages & Literature, Somerville, University of Oxford.