From Library Journal
Covering 80 poets and 240 poems, this comprehensive volume spans the decade before World War II, when surrealist poets dominated, to poets born in 1939 and thus touched by the war. They were influenced by French symbolists, American beats, and other Western poets but always followed their own voice, which usually rebelled against strict Japanese devices (tanka, haiku, waka), and experimented with ambiguities and forms. The effective translations by English professors suggest a Western sensibility. Unfortunately, the poets are presented in strictly chronological order, so their one-paragraph biographies do not help to group them by movement, style, or influences. Recommended for comprehensive public library poetry collections.?Kitty Chen Dean, Nassau Coll., Garden City, N.Y.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
Copper Canyon's release of Koriyama and Lueders' anthology is a major coup. Such a collection has been long overdue. Few readers have been exposed to, let alone gained a thorough knowledge of, Japanese poetry post-haiku and post^-World War II. A resurgence of haiku translations, particularly those of Sam Hamill and Robert Hass, have deservedly garnered praise and enlightened many a young poet. Still, there have been few collections that fill the chasm from seventeenth-or eighteenth-century Japan to the present. This anthology bridges the gap, in a way, by heightening our awareness about Japanese tradition, modern-day society, and the aftershock of World War II. The collection ranges from lyrical poetry to works influenced by surrealist and symbolist movements, to anarchist and political critique, to mid-twentieth-century nihilism. This great sampling of poets and poetic styles is united here with an excellent, historically based introduction. This book is significant for its comprehensive look at this century through Japanese eyes, for its well-thought-out format, and for the quality and accessibility of the translations. Janet St. John --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.