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

Author
Renkichi, Hirato, 1893-1922 [Browse]
Uniform title
Format
Book
Language
English
Εdition
First edition, first printing, 2017.
Published/​Created
  • Brooklyn, New York: Ugly Duckling Presse, 2017.
  • Berkeley, California : Small Press Distribution.
  • Saline, Michigan : McNaughton & Gunn.
  • ©2017
Description
205 pages, 2 unnumbered pages ; 21 cm

Details

Subject(s)
Translator
Writer of introduction
Writer of afterword
Related name
Book designer
Publisher
Printer
Related work(s)
Series
Contains
Biographical/​Historical note
  • "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 note
"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).
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).
Bibliographic references
Includes bibliographical references (page 194).
Action note
Committed to retain in perpetuity — ReCAP Shared Collection (HUL)
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.
Place name(s)
United States New York Brooklyn.
ISBN
9781937027667
OCLC
1084935285
RCP
H - S
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