Like Underground Water: The Poetry of Mid-Twentieth Century Japan
Poetry. " LIKE UNDERGROUND WATER may well be one of the most important poetry anthologies of the last decade of the twentieth century. Comprehensive in scope (81 poets), sensible in presentation and organization (about three poems each), and with translations that feel immensely readable and inviting, this book is a landmark to be warmly welcomed. Most importantly, in a period of crucial disaster and rebuilding relationships between Japan and the United States, this book articulates and...
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A richly dynamic, one-of-a-kind collection of over 240 poems from eighty leading Japanese poets.Library JournalCovering 80 poets and 240 poems, this comprehensive volume spans the decade before World War II, when surrealist poets dominated, to poets born in 1939 and thus touched by the war. They were influenced by French symbolists, American beats, and other Western poets but always followed their own voice, which usually rebelled against strict Japanese devices (tanka, haiku, waka), and experimented with ambiguities and forms. The effective translations by English professors suggest a Western sensibility. Unfortunately, the poets are presented in strictly chronological order, so their one-paragraph biographies do not help to group them by movement, style, or influences. Recommended for comprehensive public library poetry collections.Kitty Chen Dean, Nassau Coll., Garden City, N.Y.
\ Library JournalCovering 80 poets and 240 poems, this comprehensive volume spans the decade before World War II, when surrealist poets dominated, to poets born in 1939 and thus touched by the war. They were influenced by French symbolists, American beats, and other Western poets but always followed their own voice, which usually rebelled against strict Japanese devices (tanka, haiku, waka), and experimented with ambiguities and forms. The effective translations by English professors suggest a Western sensibility. Unfortunately, the poets are presented in strictly chronological order, so their one-paragraph biographies do not help to group them by movement, style, or influences. Recommended for comprehensive public library poetry collections.Kitty Chen Dean, Nassau Coll., Garden City, N.Y.\ \
