Customer Reviews

Let Those Who Appear (New Directions Books)

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For the record, I am not a big fan of contemporary poetry generally speaking, so I picked up this book partly out of curiosity and partly just to cultivate my general knowledge of Japanese literature (also, the strange oblong shape of the book caught my eye). I was then somewhat pleasantly surprised by this thin, flat little book of poetry--I found myself enjoying the strange imagery and jazzy "cafe poetry reading" rhythms of Shiraishi's poems despite myself. This is not to claim that I always "got" what she was talking about, for the imagery is indeed strange, surreal, and elusive for all that it's earthy and sensual (in the sense of appealing very concretely to the five senses). Certainly the poems are informed by beatnik attitudes or the echoes thereof (the poems all date from the 1980's to 2001), along with the concomitant environmentalist ethic and critique of modern urban life alloyed with Keruoacian whimsy--the latter saving the whole thing from getting kind of overbearing or preachy. Some might say this message is dated, but it all seems pretty relevant on a rickety bus barreling through Chicago, let me tell you.

The translators have worked hard in conjunction with the poet to render these poems into English, and I suspect they've done a fine job of capturing their tone and musicality. Still, the book suffers just a bit, I think, in being something of a random sample thrown together from seven different poetry books spanning two decades or so. Even if the poems are representative ones, as they seem to be here, any context and sense of development is lost in the shuffle (a handy key to the original sources of the poems is provided in the back for those inspired to explore further). Naturally this also makes for an unassuming size, inviting a no-risk perusal. Go ahead, give this book a chance. What do you have to lose?