The present voice by Ryōko Sekiguchi and translated by Lindsay Turner

This is poetry from Japan.

The present voice by Ryōko Sekiguchi translated by Lindsay Turner is published by Threadsuns. This is a Book originally written in French. This was published in 2021.0 and has the ISBN of 9.781734691115E12.

The present voice, by Ryōko Sekiguchi and translated by Lindsay Turner from French, brings Japan French-language poetry into English through present tense, voice, and a Japanese writer moving through French into English. The metadata gives the reader a doorway, but the real value is what happens once the poem starts making its own weather. I would read it for voice, immediacy, translation, and the fragile fact of speaking now, not as a fixed lesson about a country or period. The best entry point is still the poem itself: the line that catches, the image that refuses to explain itself, the feeling that arrives before paraphrase. The present voice belongs in the translated poetry library because it complicates national categories by showing how literary presence can cross several linguistic rooms.

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.