The collected poems of Chika Sagawa by Chika Sagawa and translated by Sawako Nakayasu

This is poetry from Japan.

The collected poems of Chika Sagawa by Chika Sagawa translated by Sawako Nakayasu is published by Canarium. This is a Collected originally written in Japanese. This was published in 2015.0 and has the ISBN of 9.780984947164E12.

The collected poems of Chika Sagawa, translated by Sawako Nakayasu, brings a startling Japanese modernist voice into English with the force of rediscovery. Sagawa’s poems are sharp, compressed, urban, strange, and often associated with the speed and fracture of early twentieth-century modernity. As a collected volume, the book matters not only as a reading experience but as a restoration of scale: English-language readers can encounter the shape of a brief, intense poetic career rather than a scattering of isolated pieces. Nakayasu’s translation is crucial, carrying both the lucidity and dislocation of Sagawa’s imagery. I would read this book for its electricity. The poems feel like glass, city light, weather, and nerves arranged into lyric form. They still seem ahead of us.

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.