Helga Jermy's Brush With Japan

It’s hard to travel to Japan and not return with something refined and beautiful. But most of us settle for set of fine knives or an elegant woodblock print. Not Helga Jermy. Helga has brought the whole country back—and, in the best tradition of Japanese gift-giving, the way it is wrapped is as impressive as the contents.

Anne Kellas writes:

“… Helga Jermy transposes the English language into something new. In Following the Ink, layered text becomes a live and mobile lens through which we see (and join) Helga and her daughter on travels through contemporary Japan, glimpsing its underlay of tradition, harmony   and postmodern tensions. With feathery brushstrokes, Helga makes a new kind of ekphrasis based on sound and movement, and the result is pleasing and beautiful: a travelling, vibrating geography, fresh and sometimes startling, always mesmerising. Reading Helga's poetry is a joy.”

Following the Ink is a zuihitsu:  a Japanese literary form that traces its origins back to the 10^th century Pillow Book. The zuihitsu is a kind of lyric essay—fragmentary discontinuous and improvisational, it is artfully imperfect, a response, neither too shapely nor too finished, to the nature of the real, the impermanence, wild order, and incompleteness of the world in human experience.

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If you have never read a zuihitsu before, this book is a wonderful way to introduce yourself to the form. If you are steeped in art of the zuihitsu, you will enjoy the subtle ways in which Helga Jermy plays with the form. The perfect Christmas present for yourself or someone you love, Following the Ink is now available from the 5 Islands Press online bookshop.

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