Two Voices: Collected from Maureen and John Irvine

Two Voices is a collection of illustrated haibun by John Irvine and Maureen Irvine. According to John Irvine, "Two Voices began as an idea after a complaint from my poet/writer wife (justified!) that although I had, and still was, building anthology after anthology I had never suggested a joint collection with her." John took her comments to heart and thought long and hard about what we might do. A few years before, John and Maureen had both fallen in love with the various Japanese styles of poetry and had both written many haiku and senryu. John then discovered haiga and embraced that particular type with its haiku written on a photograph or other illustration. It seemed that the ideal form for the poets and writers was the haibun. In this particular type of poem prose is interspersed with haiku/senryu. Unfortunately, pressure of work (more anthologies) sidelined the collection for a couple of years but finally, with the expert help of my genius graphics friend, Dave Freeman, and the interest shown by Roger Lang of Pohutukawa Publishing in NZ, here it is!