Poet forging links from East to West
The longest running English poetry journal in Japan, Poetry Nippon, was founded in the fall of 1967. Edited by Sapporo-based poet and translator Yorifumi Yaguchi, it has helped forge links between Japanese, British and American poetry for over 30 years. Yorifumi Yaguchi and William ...
Kan Mikami's 30 years of recording in a box
Kan Mikami has just released a CD box set to celebrate his 30-year recording history, here covered in 19 CDs. I first had the pleasure of hearing Mikami perform at a publication party for his third book of poems, "Kaze Ahaha" (1993), and I was ...
Avant-garde poet tosses Japan a luscious bouquet
The end of last year and the beginning of this one has produced a fine crop of poetry publications. Though each of these volumes deserves its own separate review, happily I'm able to give these works exposure here. In May's installment last year, I ...
A little home for poetry in Shinagawa
Keiyudoh is a book store specializing in rare art books, with a small gallery in the back. Currently the gallery features an exhibition of calligraphy by Sueo Akiyama, a self-taught artist, whose works have received cultural awards in Poland and France recently. Keiyudoh also ...
Speaking to both the eye and the ear
Poet Keiichi Nakamura first wrote tanka, and then composed monotype lithographs after graduating from the University of Sapporo. Later he created collages in which he explored the fusion of poetry with images. He became interested in mail art (art which is circulated by post among ...
In Itoman, Okinawa Prefecture Oct. 15, Shuntaro Tanikawa read such scatological, contemporary poems as "Onara (Fart)" and "Unko (Crap)" from his collection "Hadaka" (the English edition, "Naked," is jointly published by Stone Bridge Press and Saru Press). Tanikawa performed his poetry with the jazz band ...
Rexroth revolution comes home to Japan
Yokohama-based essayist and poet Morgan Gibson has been and continues to be one of the most prolific contributors to Japan's English literary scene. Of his own work he had poems published in the 1970s in pioneering journals like One Mind and Kyoto Review and ...
Tokyo poets get a night out to Howl
Howl, the bar in Aoyama, was founded just after Allen Ginsberg's death in 1997. Proprietor Maki Fujimoto, producer and graphic designer of Heaven Limited, was once sent on an assignment to interview Ginsberg for a special issue on the Beat Generation for the former Japanese ...
A wealth of autumn events to delight all Tokyo wordsmiths
The upcoming "Ueno Poetrican Jam" is being touted as the biggest poetry-reading event ever to be held in Japan. About 60 poets have been selected from volunteers to participate, and recognized poets such as Sandaime Uotake, Shigeo Hamada and Ikuo Tani will also be ...
When dream makers walk among us
Socrates' bestial laugh washes into the cosmic map where Blake digs with his spade and Sam stands bathed in the sparks of his youth Among colored shapes, Sam embraces the warmest softest things a woman's spirit in the shape of clouds in the shape ...
Cafe Independent, a "rattle-bag collection of poetry, art, pearls of prose . . . ," is produced by Oliver Kinghorn and Shannon Smith in Kyoto. Cafe quotes Henry Miller's "Keep on writing! Keep on painting! F*** 'em all!" as a liberating slogan. More quotations (from ...
Japanese poets write the book of love
Stroker, a publisher of chapbooks, is the distributor and copublisher of "2000 Japanese Poems for the Year 2000," a voluminous collection of chapbooks, 15 in all, translated by Howard S. Levy. Love is the focus. The introductory volume is the essay titled "The Psychology of ...
