Spiral staircase / Hirato Renkichi ; translation & introduction Sho Sugita ; afterword Eric Selland.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Hirato, Renkichi, 1893-1922, author.

Contributor:

Sugita, Sho, translator, writer of introduction.

Selland, Eric, writer of afterword.

Pourian, Pareesa.

Bogden, Katherine, book designer.

Ugly Duckling Presse, publisher.

McNaughton & Gunn (Firm), printer.

Series:

Lost literature series ; #15.

Lost literature series

Standardized Title:

Poems. English 2017

Language:

English

Japanese

Subjects (All):

Japanese poetry--20th century--Translations into English.

Japanese poetry.

Futurism (Literary movement)--Japan.

Futurism (Literary movement).

Japan.

Poetry--20th century.

Local Subjects:

Poetry--20th century.

Genre:

Experimental poetry, Japanese.

Poetry.

Physical Description:

205 pages ; 21 cm.

Edition:

First edition.

Distribution:

Berkeley, California : Small Press Distribution, [2017]

Manufacture:

Saline, Michigan : McNaughton & Gunn, [2017]

Place of Publication:

Brooklyn, New York : Ugly Duckling Presse, 2017.

Language Note:

Translated from the Japanese.

Biography/History:

"Born Kawahata Seiichi on December 9th 1893 in Osaka, Hirato Renkichi attended Sophia University in Tokyo for three years before dropping out and attending Gyosei Gakko to study Italian. He started writing poetry in 1912, first publishing in Banso under the guidance of Kawaji Ryuko. Although he worked at Hochi Shimbun News and Chuo Geijutsu Art Publishing, he suffered from a pulmonary disease, often failing to make ends meet for his family. He passed away on July 20, 1922 in Tokyo, at the age of 29."--Publisher's website (viewed 01/09/2017).

"Sho Sugita lives in Matsumoto, Japan. His recent poems and translations have appeared or are forthcoming in VOLT, Poems by Sunday, Chicago Review, 6x6, Lana Turner, Paperbag, A Perimeter, and Asymptote."--Publisher's website (viewed 01/09/2017).

"Eric Selland is a poet and translator living on the outskirts of Tokyo. His translations of Modernist and contemporary Japanese poets have appeared in a variety of journals and anthologies. He has also published articles on Japanese Modernist poetry and translation theory. He is the author of Beethoven's Dream (Isobar Press, 2015), Arc Tangent (Isobar Press, 2013), Still Lifes (Hank's Original Loose Gravel Press, 2012), The Condition of Music (Sink Press, 2000), and an essay in The Poem Behind the Poem: Translating Asian Poetry (Copper Canyon Press, 2004). Eric is currently editing an anthology of 20th century Japanese Modernist and avant-garde poetry with poet/translator Sawako Nakayasu. His translation of The Guest Cat, a novel by Takashi Hiraide, appeared in January of 2014 from New Directions Books and made it on the New York Times bestseller list."--Publisher's website (viewed 01/09/2017).

Summary:

"Once called "the Marinetti of Japan" by David Burliuk, Hirato Renkichi produced a unique brand of Futurism from the late 1910s and early 1920s through poetry, criticism, and guerrilla performance. Contributing to the earliest productions of Japanese avant-garde poetry, his aggressive experimentation with speed, spatialization, and performability would later influence what became a lively community of Dadaist and Surrealist writers in pre-war Japan.Spiral Staircase is the first definitive volume of Renkichi's poems to appear in English. With an introduction by Sho Sugita and an afterword by Eric Selland."--Publisher's website (viewed 01/09/2017).

Contents:

From Selected poems of Hirato Renkichi : New Voice: Kitchen

Ball

Le vieillard fou de dessin

Spring! Spring!

New voice

Yesterday there

A careless pitch ; Arabesque: A caricature of early dawn

Sounds of the black night

Ballade Van de Haven

A conversation on the hill

Gourd garden

Minimum_Maximum

Van Gogh's Sunflowers ; Hard Fight: Hot-Blast

Insight

Beast

Uomo! Your mission

Speck, fishhook, crest, antenna, hoof

Ordinary symbols

Expanse and I (Ekphrasis) ; Development: Two short poems

An impression of Hospital K

Ginza, color, light, reverberation, stench, curiosity, ephemere

Music inside the box

Talisman

A tropical poem

Four developments in my new poetic movement of 1921

Toad

New moon

Car

Ensemble

Contact

Storm

Instrument

Figure

Machine

The strange cloud

To a particular violiniste .........

Self-effacement

What is sent there

Key

Improvisational poem I

Improvisational poem II

Friend of the day ;

Uncollected Poems (1916-1922) : The king of heaven and earth

Fragrance and touch

Numerous gates

To the end of the world

Blue resounding

Song for the skylark

Spring

Deep nocturne

Flower garden of roses for our early years

Bar

Le soir

The bay

Spring and pupil

Garden

Drunkard's song

The sword I gird is a grass seedpod

Shakyamuni

Festival song

Memory

Sea cucumber drying factory

A sacred pattern

Moondog

Stars

Porcelain

To Mr. N

To M

To the young French poets on the battle line

Her garden

Creation

Shadow

Small self-portrait

To the strange middle-aged man ..........

To dispel doubts

Green

Vertical cut

Various memories

Indoors

Happy life

I'm to get sucked into five flower pots

As the siren goes off. . .

Torrent

Meaningful union

Open the window

Unrestrained

The footsteps of joyous life

Brightly set the torch

Diagram of spring light

Cryptography

Nightscape

Ball polishing

Portrait

Amalgam

Fire

The joyous tree of life

In praise of the seven-colored roses

Self-portrait

Beach longing

Crown

Nothing day / Not guilty

Female diver

Manifesto of the Japanese futurist

Movement.

Notes:

Poems.

"Translation & introduction, Sho Sugita ; afterword, Eric Selland."--Page 3.

"Cover art by Pareesa Pourian. Design by Katherine Bogden & Doormouse. Typeset in Avenir & Futura. Printed & bound by McNaughton & Gunn, Saline, Michigan. Covers printed letterpress at Ugly Duckling Presse in Brooklyn, New York. The editors would like to thank Lee Norton, Karen Ornat, and Emma Wipperman for their invaluable assistance. The publisher would like to acknowledge the support of the National Endowment for the Arts and the New York State Council on the Arts."--Colophon (page 2).

ISBN:

9781937027667

193702766X

OCLC:

968686662

Publisher Number:

99972586806