Echoes is a fine poet collaboration on various forms of renku inspired verse focusing on friendship. Michelle Hyatt and Jacob Salzer are both experienced poets, and their poetry for this book was composed during the world’s social isolation due to Covid-19. The collection is diverse and divided into the following sections: “Tan Renga,” “Yotsumono,” “Rengay,” “Experimental Rengay,” “Junicho,” “Kasen,” and “Solo Linked-Verse.” Besides friendship, the other prevailing subject is a consideration for ancestors, including mother earth or Gaia. This theme appears in many of their renkuinspired forms. Take the following tan-renga from a sequence of them called “Past Lives” as an example: past lives / the ancestors smile / in my grandma’s face // dry riverbed / the thirst for knowledge. The next section is a group of yotsumono renku, and Hyatt and Salzer used the book Renku Reckoner (2015) by John Edmund Carley as a guide... 

I just finished this fabulous book of poetry by Jacob Salzer and his friend Michelle Hyatt. Every poem in the book is a gem. This book blew me away with it's depth and beauty. Highly recommend you read it too.

I highly recommend Echoes! A heartwarming collaboration of traditional Japanese forms of linked verses that captures the reader, much as music does, with fine lyrics. In this book, the two poets, Michelle Hyatt and Jacob Salzer weave words that instantly captivate as we deeply experience their love of nature and the human world, and poignant relationships with loved ones. Moving, insightful, joyful and uplifting, Echoes offers the reader an intimate journey into ordinary life filled with moments of beauty, love, and peace.

The newly published anthology Echoes – A Collection of Linked Verse Poetry by Michelle Hyatt and Jacob Salzer should not be missed. It is, as Salzer explains in the introduction of the book about friendship which is further emphasized in the acknowledgement page where they express their gratitude to many other poet friends. Echoes is a fine example of poet collaboration on various forms of renku inspired verse.