The Collected Poems of Chika Sagawa (Modern Library Torchbearers)

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 with Western influences, these short, sharp, surreal works paint a vibrant picture of a world just out of reach of our own.

The Modern Library Torchbearers series features women who wrote on their own terms, with boldness, creativity, and a spirit of resistance.

AMERICAN INDIAN STORIES • THE AWAKENING • THE CUSTOM OF THE COUNTRY • THE HEADS OF CERBERUS • LADY AUDLEY’S SECRET • LOVE, ANGER, MADNESS • PASSING • THE RETURN OF THE SOLDIER • THERE IS CONFUSION • THE TRANSFORMATION OF PHILIP JETTAN • VILLETTE

Chika Sagawa (1911–1936) was born in Hokkaido, Japan. In 1928 she moved to Tokyo and quickly integrated into the literary avant-garde community, publishing her work frequently in the influential journal Shi to Shiron. She died of stomach cancer at the age of twenty-four.

Sawako Nakayasu was born in Japan and raised in the US, and has also lived in France and China along the way. Her most recent books are The Ants (Les Figues Press, 2014), and Texture Notes (Letter Machine, 2010), and recent translations include The Collected Poems of Sagawa Chika (Canarium Books, 2015), and Tatsumi Hijikata's Costume en Face (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2015). Her translation of Takashi Hiraide's For the Fighting Spirit of the Walnut (New Directions, 2008) received the 2009 Best Translated Book Award from Three Percent. She has received fellowships from the NEA and PEN, and her own work has been translated into Japanese, Norwegian, Swedish, Arabic, Chinese, and Vietnamese. Sawako Nakayasu currently teaches at Brown University in the Department of Literary Arts.