Tùkhòne

by D.A. Lockhart

Although the title of this book suggests sadness and shadows, it also raises awareness and hope. Here to convey the losses and changes of Tùkhòne area, Lockhart applies Japanese lyric forms with his ancestral moon movements and his lost dialect. We find ice, geese, medicines as well as church, bridge, bar and traffic; we hear tides, rail cars and gulls, we also sing loud and send prayers. Nature and the modern world encounter, collide and “dance” in Lockhart's lines and mind. Following his riverside city tours and reflections, we see the pain, the suffering and desire to find balance and peace. “We almost lost Detroit”, we hear him “our being, is birthed here, rooted here, and left for creation to know we have not given up.” We witness with him: “roots need to be pushed downward/against the wind”, “Deeper black where/abandoned station rises. Way up,/windows burn to life.”
- Anna Yin author of Nightlights, inaugural Poet Laureate of Mississauga

In this collection Lockhart has skillfully grafted the sensibility of the haiku onto the rootstock of his First Nation perspective. The result?— the separate vascular tissues have fused and grown into something new and densely rich.
- George Swede editor of Erotic Haiku: of skin on skin (2017), and helices (2016) winner of Mildred Kanterman Merit Book Award, Haiku Society of America (2017)

Creating a hybrid of haiku, haibun and narrative, D.A. Lockhart stands at a unique crossroads in literature. Infused with his ancestral language, the Southern Unami dialect of Lenape (mëxate kishux - deep snow moon, chahkoli kishux - frog moon, wtehim kishux - strawberry moon), and an extensive musical dictionary, Tùkhòne unpacks a wisdom, an energy, a light, following in the footsteps of Gerald Visenor, Anishinaabe (Chippewa) scholar and haiku poet.
-Terry Ann Carter author of Haiku in Canada: History, Poetry, Memoir (Ekstasis Press, 2020), Tokaido (Red Moon Press, 2017) winner of the Touchstone Distinguished Book Award

70 pages, Paperback

First published October 27, 2020

About the author

D.A. Lockhart is the author of nine books, including North of Middle Island (Kegedonce Press, 2023) Bearmen Descend Upon Gimli (Frontenac House, 2021) and Breaking Right: Stories (Porcupine's Quill, 2021). His work has appeared in Best Canadian Poetry in English 2019, TriQuarterly, ARC Poetry Magazine, Grain, Belt, and the Malahat Review among many. His work has garnered multiple Pushcart Prize nominations, Best of the Net nominations, and National Magazine Prize Nominations. His books have been shortlisted for the ReLit Award, Indiana Authors Awards, First Nations Communities READ Awards, and the Raymond Souster Award.

Lockhart is a Turtle Clan member of Eelünaapéewi Lahkéewiit (Lenape), a registered treatied member of the Moravian of the Thames First Nation, and currently resides at the south shore of Waawiiyaatanong (Windsor,ON-Detroit, MI) and Pelee Island. His work has been generously supported by the Ontario Arts Council and the Canada Council for the Arts. He is the publisher at Urban Farmhouse Press.

Reviews

[Penn Kemp · Rating 5 out of 5]

“I sing out words
formed from muscle memory, don’t let the sound of your own wheels
drive you crazy.”

“a constellation of loss behind him.
Flickering red lights
emerge between clouds,
ancestors return home.”

In Lockhart's collections, tributes to the Moon, to local rivers, are all named in the Southern Unami dialect of Lenape, sounding out the names. These poem sequences are presented in Japanese forms and narrative as a rich hybrid mélange, just as tradition surfaces in city life.
Poems of long memory, closely observed.