In the introduction to the first English translation of her work, Takako Arai refers to poems as vacant lots, alluding to the economic suffering of her hometown Kiryu, Gunma Prefecture, and to the open spaces left by terrorism and bombs in New York City and Belgrade.
Open space dominates the first poem in this collection, "The Taniguku" (toad). Short lines and short breaths, it is a seductive reworking of Matsuo Basho's frog haiku in which the creature not so much jumps but dances into the water — a sexual, playful and mischievous poem subverting myth and classic literature.
Arai's poetry is concerned with music, movement and language, but not pretentiously so. Endnotes following the poems help the reader with some of the more obscure references. (I learned about an Edo Period Bacchanalian dance, and where Japonesia is situated.) Dance and the physicality of language are strong elements in the book. Butoh-like, the poet forms states of mind out of the body of her words.