There is a world beyond the blue sky we only catch glimpses of behind the white clouds high above us. Yet this is a world we cannot and should not ever see too clearly. Drawn from the five different "realms" of the sea, the middle country, the underworld, the forests and the country of old, Noriko Tanakas third collection, From the Middle Country, is born of that human longing to somehow explore this unknowable space. We stand with Noriko in the Middle Country of our contemporary uncertain reality ever aware of the womb of the sea, of the underworld of the dead, of the protection offered by...