For the Fighting Spirit of the Walnut by Takashi Hiraide and translated by Sawako Nakayasu

This is poetry from Japan.

For the Fighting Spirit of the Walnut by Takashi Hiraide translated by Sawako Nakayasu is published by New Directions. This is a Book originally written in Japanese. This was published in 2008.0 and has the ISBN of 9.780811217484E12.

For the Fighting Spirit of the Walnut, translated from the Japanese by Sawako Nakayasu, brings Takashi Hiraide’s Japanese-language work into English through New Directions. Published in 2008, it is best approached as a book of encounter rather than as a book to solve. Hiraide’s title is one of those marvelous poetic refusals of ordinary scale, letting a walnut possess spirit, resistance, and comic dignity. A useful way into the book is to listen for what the translation makes possible: not a perfect replacement of the original, but a new body of sound. The poems carry Japan into English without becoming a cultural brochure. They ask for attention, and they reward the reader who lets uncertainty remain useful.

If you’d like to see international poetry continue and gain traction, consider requesting this work from your local library, or purchasing it from places like Open Books (a poetry only bookstore), Asterism Books (an independent press distributor), or bookshop.org to connect you with your local bookstores.

Check out more of the always in-progress translated poetry index here.