B I O G R A P H I E S
Please click on the following links below to learn more about the cherita from ai li and Larry Kimmel, and to discover their other poetic works.
at lunuganga, sri lanka
ai li
editor of the cherita
creator of cherita and gembun
publisher of the cherita
you sit
with
your dead
and make
all our nights
lonely
ai li
ai li is the founding editor and publisher of still, moving into breath and dew-on-line. She is also a Fellow of The Royal Photographic Society of Great Britain [FRPS], and an evidential spiritualist medium who trained at The Spiritualist Association of Great Britain [Est. 1872] and The College of Psychic Studies, London [Est. 1883].
ai li’s poems have been widely published in the UK, USA, and Japan.
She has also created 22 original linked forms akin to Renku aka Renga, three of which are the cherita, gembun and dua. These three storytelling short form genres have been widely embraced and have grown in popularity since ai li created two in 1997 and one in 2022. Cherita, Gembun and Dua bring out the storyteller which lives in all of us.
ai li taught a Cherita class at the Hampstead U3A, and this class produced 7 fine poets who have contributed to the cherita with their timeless stories. She encouraged and guided her students to write in one breath whenever possible. ai li strongly believes that with 6 lines, and other short form poetry, drafting can rob a poem of its immediacy and essence which inevitably means a cherita, gembun and dua will lose their potency. She writes all her Cherita, Gembun, Dua, Tanka and Haiku poems in one breath and has been doing this for almost thirty years for four of these genres.
She lives quietly and mindfully in London and writes in a Rousseau inspired dream yard watched over by three old stone buddhas, a resident pair of hedge sparrows, and a chorus of blackbirds, robins, green finches, dunnocks, gold finches, chaffinches, blue tits, coal tits, long tail tits and a goldcrest.
ai li has also selected 25 fine cherita from 25 poets for a special feature on Cherita on Atlas Poetica’s website : https://www.atlaspoetica.org/25-cherita/
Find her in the quiet of her website www.aili.co.uk
You will also find a collection of books of ai li’s Cherita, Gembun, Tanka and Haiku in the following links :
Larry Kimmel
godfather of the cherita
former co-editor of the cherita
my life
at the violet edge of day
no second draft
fears of
the dark walk
with me
Larry Kimmel
Larry Kimmel grew up in the rural area near Johnstown, Pennsylvania, USA. He holds degrees form Oberlin Conservatory and Pittsburgh University, and has worked at everything from steel mills to libraries. He has been publishing poetry for 40 years, and now lives quietly with his wife in the hills of western Massachusetts. USA.
You can find his most recent books, “outer edges” (tanka)” and “in an upstairs room (cherita) ” on his Larry Kimmel website, as well as on Amazon.com. Announcements and updates to his website can be viewed on the Larry Kimmel blog page https://larry-kimmel.com/blog-2/
“The Piercing Blue of Sirius: Selected Poems 1968 – 2008″ is free to read online.
You can learn more about cherita on his website https://larry-kimmel.com/
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