Scope and Contents

The selected poems of Kitasano (1902-1978) reflect his range of styles, for he believed "that poetic activity consisted of more than simply writing poems. Kitasano stretched in multiple artistic directions, and at one time or another wrote stories and criticism, edited, painted, photographed, made short films, and even danced, while calling them all poetry." John Solt also writes in his introduction that Kitasano had first composed Concrete poetry as early as 1927 to 1929 as an offshoot of Futurist and Dadaist experimentation, At the request of the De Campos brothers in the 1950's, Kitasano wrote a new poem, "Monotonous Space" which was translated into English, Spanish, Portuguese and German. The illustrations are photographic reproductions of Kitasano's visual poems, and, semi-realistic and abstract line drawings. The photograph depicted on page 58 is also held by the Sackner Archive. -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.

Scope and Contents

Karl Young wrote the introductory biographical essay on Kitasono Katue. Of interest is that some conventional and visual poems by Katue were written in English. This book includes the sole interview of Katue translated into English that appeared in Yu #8, 1975. Examples of poems from the late 1920s to early 1930s that are reproduced in this book are Japanese concrete poems. -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.

Scope and Contents

Karl Young wrote the introductory biographical essay on Kitasono Katue. Of interest is that some conventional and visual poems by Katue were written in English. This book includes the sole interview of Katue translated into English that appeared in Yu #8, 1975. Examples of poems from the late 1920s to early 1930s that are reproduced in this book are Japanese concrete poems. -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.

Scope and Contents Using Kitasono as a window on Japanese literature in the twentieth century, John Solt analyzes the relationship of Japanese writers to foreign literary movements and the influences of Japanese writers on world literature. He also provides a critical analysis of Kitasono's poetic working methods with several translations of poems written in Japanese to English. He mentions that in the late 1920s, Katue published "Collection of White Poems" that was translated by Solt. This is a constellation long before Gomringer declared this form, concrete poetry, e.g. white residence - white table - pink noblelady - white distant view - blue sky, etc. Solt records the following. "Other Western poets took notice of the VOU translations. High praise came from Hugh Gordon Porteus, who wrote in Criterion in 1939, "The most fruitful experiments with language are likely to continue to emerge from those who concern themselves with images and their relations, rather than with idle wordspinning. Nothing...