Zen Mercies / Small Satoris
Published by Penumbra Press
13.0 x 19.0 cm, 64 pages, ISBN 1-894131-75-4, $14.99
Table of Contents

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From luminous moments of deep awareness, Bluger brings us more of her signature sharp yet gently memorable tanka. Eminent as an imagist, the author of many books of lyric poetry, has in recent years increasingly won recognition at home as well as in Japan and the U.S.A. for her beautiful work with oriental forms.

Bluger's GUSTS, the first collection of tanka to appear in English in Canada, has become a sort of classic. Of the tanka in GUSTS Christopher Wiseman wrote: "I have REALLY enjoyed this book. It's the images and depth and modesty and dignity and insight and sheer humanity that distinguish Bluger".

A Christian of mystical bent, Bluger still retains the earthy directness of her Jewish heritage (her Father was a Shoah survivor), as well as the disciplined sensibility of one well trained in Zen meditation which she practised in the sixties and seventies when married to a now prominent Zen Master. Bluger has won many awards and prizes for her poetry.

With her husband, the well-known birder, Larry Neily, Bluger lived in Ottawa where she worked on a collection of lyric portraits up to the time of her death. Zen Mercies/Small Satoris was her ninth book of poems.

For an excellent review of this book by Richard Stevenson (July 11, 2005), see the Lethbridge Insider.