Asking Myself, Answering Myself: Poems by Shimpei Kusano

by Shinpei Kusano, Cid Corman (Translator)

Thirty-nine poems spanning the career of Shinpei Kusano (1903-1988), who was widely renowned within Japan for his poems featuring frogs.

Genres: Poetry

68 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1984

Reviews

[libreroaming]

I wish I liked this collection better but it may be that the translation gap was too wide to traverse properly. He had some offbeat sensibility, which I liked in his poem of taking his dog for a walk and the conversation between a potato and onion. But I'm missing the cultural touchstone of his work.

[Sam M]

🥹

[C.A.]

While I don't LOVE every single poem in this book, there are poems I LOVE, and that's why the book gets 5 stars! Marvelous things going on in here. Read this (read it aloud, especially if you're on a bus, or crowded room):


un un. un un.
un un.

mm mm. mm mm.
mm.

ah ah. ah ah.
ah.

(shut up.)

(can't say a word.)


GOTTA LOVE A POET WHO TELLS THEMSELVES TO SHUT UP! Cid Corman and Sunsumu Kamaike translated this gem of a book. Don't know if it's still available, but you certainly can order it from your local library's interlibrary loan department.

CAConrad
http://CAConrad.blogspot.com

[uena]

The Moon

walking I was.
trampling fallen leaves.

moon rose.

and I.
turned into the street.

and again.
turn into a path.