The Collected Poems of Chika Sagawa
Winner of the PEN Award for Poetry in Translation • The electrifying collected works of “one of the most innovative and prominent avant-garde poets in early twentieth-century Japan” (The New Yorker).
Translated by and with an introduction by Sawako Nakayasu
Dreams are severed fruit
Auburn pears have fallen in the field
Parsley blooms on the plate
Sometimes the leghorn appears to have six toes
I crack an egg and the moon comes out
An important and daringly experimental voice in Tokyo’s avant-garde poetry scene, Chika Sagawa broke with the gender-bound traditions of Japanese poetry and became Japan’s first female Modernist poet.
Sagawa’s poems and prose in this stunning collection explore death and rebirth, the ephemerality of human life and the timeless wonders of nature. Combining striking, unique imagery…