Work Information

A sharply free sequence that turns poetry itself into a stage.

An English translation of Kiwao Nomura’s poetry for English-language readers, the book uses leaps of meaning, repetition, and bodily texture to generate a strong rhythm. The bilingual facing-page format sharpens both the motion of the poems and their unsettling afterglow.

Book Information

Publisher

Omnidawn

Published

2011-09-01

Pages

128 pages

Language

英語

Size

15.24 x 0.81 x 22.86 cm

ISBN-13

9781890650537

ISBN-10

1890650536

Price

2747 JPY

Category

洋書/Literature & Fiction/Poetry/Anthologies

If you think of haiku when you think of Japanese poetry, this book will be a huge surprise. The strange and wild poems of Kiwao Nomura deal with sex and loss and memory by making unpredictable leaps of association. Imagine Fugazi singing philosophy and you get close. Inspired by shamanism, Kiwao Nomura sounds like nothing you’ve ever heard before and like something you want to hear over and over. He is one of the two or three of the most influential living Japanese poets, and his work will be as stunningly original and compelling to contemporary Americans as haiku was to the late Victorians. Anyone interested in making contact with Japanese culture will want to read Spectacle & Pigsty.

Kiwao Nomura is a poet, a literary critic, and an essayist. In 2005 he was a fellow at the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa and also served as the director of the Japan-European Contemporary Poetry Festival in Tokyo. Kyoko Yoshida is a writer and a translator whose stories have been published in the Beloit Fiction Journal , Chelsea , the Cream City Review , and the Massachusetts Review . She teaches English at Keio University in Yokohama, Japan. Forrest Gander is the author of the novel As a Friend and the poetry collection Eye Against Eye . He is the translator of works by many Latin American writers, including Coral Bracho and Jaime Saenz. A United States Artist Rockefeller fellow, he is also a professor of English and comparative literature at Brown University. He lives in Providence, Rhode Island. KIWAO NOMURA was born October 20, 1951 in Saitama Prefecture. He graduated from Waseda University, majoring in Japanese literature. A leading writer of the post-war generation, he is in the forefront of contemporary poetry. At the same time, he is known to be a prolific critic, translator, and essayist on comparative poetics. His work has been translated into many languages and published in magazines abroad, especially in France and the United States. He has performed internationally and released two CDs of collaborations with musicians. He played a leading role in Contemporary Poetry Festival 95, Poetry Goes Out and Contemporary Poetry Festival 97, Dance and Poésie. In 2007, he organized The Festival of International Poetry: Toward the Pacific Rim. From August to November 2005, he was a fellow at the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa in the United States. In December of the same year, he served as a director of the Japan-European Contemporary Poetry Festival in Tokyo. KYOKO YOSHIDA was born and raised in Fukuoka, Japan. She was a participant of the 2005 International Writing Program at University of Iowa. Her stories have been published in The Massachusetts Review, Chelsea, The Cream City Review and The Beloit Fiction Journal, among other places. She is working on a novel about the visit of American Negro League baseball players to Japan in the 1930’s. In addition, she translates Japanese contemporary poetry and drama. Recently a Visiting Scholar at Brown University, she teaches English at Keio University and lives in Yokohama. FORREST GANDER is the author of books of poems, translations, and prose, much of it published by New Directions. He has edited several anthologies and translated individual books by Latin American writers. Two of his books of translation have been PEN Translation Award Finalists. Recent titles include Eye Against Eye (poetry with photographs by Sally Mann), the novel As a Friend, and translations of Mexican poet Coral Bracho (Firefly Under the Tongue: Selected Poems). A United States Artist Rockefeller fellow, Gander is also the recipient of fellowships from the NEA and the Guggenheim, Whiting, and Howard foundations. He is Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Brown University.

Related Literary Awards

• Best Translated Book Award Edition 5 (2012) ・Winner