Four from Japan
By Ryoko Sekiguchi, Takako Arai, Kiriu Minashita, Kyong-Mi Park
Translated by Cole Swensen, Sawako Nakayasu, Ryoko Sekiguchi
$14.00
This revolutionary volume of work by Kiriu Minashita, Kyong-Mi Park, Ryoko Sekiguchi, and Takako Arai represents a distinctive bilingual anthology dedicated to women working in modern, experimental, cross-cultural poetry milieus. Published collaboratively by Belladonna* Books and Litmus Press in honor of the 2006 Festival of Contemporary Japanese Women Poets with support by NYSCA.
Cole Swensen
Ryoko Sekiguchi
Takako Arai
Sawako Nakayasu
Kiriu Minashita
Kyong-Mi Park
Praise for Four from Japan
Litmus and Belladonna have produced a gorgeous volume…. [T]he collection presents a perspective on Japanese poetry in its contemporary situation and on the tradition these poems rise out of and/or against… The collection also reminds me that the most daring poems do not experiment merely for the sake of innovation: they innovate so we may discover.
— Matthew Henriksen, The Poetry Project Newsletter
Four From Japan showcases a diverse and reflective body of Japanese verse and other writings that is strongly recommended reading, a seminal addition to academic library poetry collections, and a welcome contribution to Japanese Cultural Studies supplemental reading lists.
— Midwest Book Review
Kiriu Minashita, Kyong-Mi Park, Ryoko Sekiguchi, and Takako Arai… concern themselves with the elasticity of language and the variation of form—at the very least, the poems are all activation and possibility. They are borrowers. They unmask plural complications. For none of these poets want you to have a singular idea of “Japan,” “Japanese-ness,” or “poetry.” The anthology allows its reader to explode one’s own conceptions and definitions and explore beyond the familiar… Four From Japan: Contemporary Poetry & Essays by Women is one of the best anthologies I’ve encountered because the book shows a practice of de-centralization instead of map-making and canon-formation. The works are presented in translation and in Japanese; they provide writing by the poets in both lines and in prose; and they all interlock and complicate one another without presenting a narrow view of what Japanese poetry by women can be.
— John Rufo, Ploughshares
Four From Japan is a studied glimpse into the writing of four contemporary Japanese women poets. It does not aspire or attempt to do the work of representing or encompassing contemporary Japanese (or Japanese women’s) poetry in its entirety. Instead, according to primary translator Sawako Nakayasu… this is “a poetry by women that does not fit into a prescribed category of women’s writing.”
— Steven Karl, Coldfront