My floating mother, city by Kazuko Shiraishi and translated by Samuel Grolmes, Yumiko Tsumura

This is poetry from Japan.

My floating mother, city by Kazuko Shiraishi translated by Samuel Grolmes, Yumiko Tsumura is published by New Directions Pub. Co.. This is a Book originally written in Japanese. This was published in 2009.0 and has the ISBN of 9.780811217965E12.

My floating mother, city, by Kazuko Shiraishi and translated by Samuel Grolmes and Yumiko Tsumura, carries a title that feels urban, maternal, and dreamlike all at once. Shiraishi is an important Japanese poet associated with jazz, performance, surreal energy, and a cosmopolitan postwar imagination. The phrase “floating mother, city” refuses to settle into a single image. Mother becomes city; city becomes body; memory drifts rather than stands still. The translators bring that movement into English. I would read this book for its fluidity and improvisation, the sense that identity can be composed from rhythm, place, family, and the unstable lights of modern life. Shiraishi’s poems often feel like they want to be heard as much as read.

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.