Poetry lovers, you won't want to miss this wonderful line-up of American poets & translators offering a wide range of poetic voices and styles at this year's Japan Writers Conference at Nihon University in Tokyo!
MORGAN GIBSON (Nonzen Poems 2010), ARTHUR BINARD, LEZA LOWITZ (Yoga Heart, 2010), TAYLOR MIGNON (Japlish Whiplash, 2010), JOHN GRIBBLE, BERN MULVEY, SAWAKO NAKAYASU (Texture Notes, 2010)
Morgan Gibson: “SIXTY YEARS OF COUNTERCULTURAL POETRY, a poetry reading with commentary, Q&A, discussion ” In the context of the Counter Culture climaxing in the 1960’s and continuing to the present, I will present and encourage critical discussion of my poetry written from 1950 on and published in America and Japan. For discussion: what is the meaning and value of countercultural poetry? Highly recommended as background readings: Kenneth Rexroth’s Complete Poems, 2003; American Poetry in the Twentieth Century, 1971, and the Rexroth Archives, Bureau of Public Secrets,
http://www.bopsecrets.org/rexroth/ Theodore Roszak’s The Making of a Counter Culture, 1968. MORGAN GIBSON is a poet, essayist, and critic who has also published short fiction and two short plays.He won poetry and fiction awards from Oberlin College, a Fiction First Award from Mutiny magazine, and a Scholarly Book Award from Choice for Revolutionary Rexroth: Poet of East-West Wisdom, which was later updated for the Light&Dust Online Anthology of Poetry at
http://www.thing.net/~grist/ld/rexroth/gibson.htm Gibson taught writing, creative and otherwise, literature, and related subjects at American universities for two decades, primarily the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee 1961-72, where he received a Uhrig Award for teaching creative writing. Later he taught at Japanese universities for another two decades. His archives are in the Morgan Gibson Collection in the University of Chicago’s Regenstein Library.
Leza Lowitz & Christopher Yohmei Blasdel: “The Zen of Poetry: Reading and Shakuhachi Concert followed by Q & A” The Six Treasures of the Lotus Sutra: Leza Lowitz Reads from Yoga Heart: Lines on the Six Perfections with Musical Accompaniment by Christopher Yohmei Blasdel on the Shakuhachi. Lowitz and Blasdel have collaborated on numerous occasions setting poetry to music and bringing out the music of poetry. LEZA LOWITZ has published over 15 books, all still in print and many about Japan. Among her awards for fiction, poetry and co-translation are the PEN/Oakland Josephine Miles Poetry Award, a PEN Syndicated Fiction Award, grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities, a California Arts Council Fellowship in Poetry, and the U.S. -Japan Friendship Commission Award from the Donald Keene Center at Columbia University, with Shogo Oketani. Her newest book is Zen Poems, forthcoming from Stone Bridge Press (Spring 2011), based on the Six Paramitas (Six Perfections) of Mahayana Buddhism from the Lotus Sutra (Saddharmapundarika). She began her study of Buddhism and yoga as a teenager, and considers it her life's study. She opened Sun and Moon Yoga studio in Tokyo in 2003.
Arthur Binard, “Home Improvements, or Being Better To Be As Good--Translating Picture Books and Poems.” Translation is a little like moving a house. A structure which was sound in its original language often ends up crooked and weakened in a new language. It is the translator’s job to make improvements. In this session problematic close translations which led to creative solutions will be examined. Arthur Binard is a poet, translator, children’s book author, and radio commentator. His translations into English include The Family of Fourteen series by Kazuo Ewamura and Once Upon A Home Upon A Home by Ken Hirata. He has translated into Japanese Eric Carle’s Pancakes, Pancakes! and Bob Dylan’s “Forever Young.”
Bern Mulvey and John Gribble: “There’s No Business Like Po’ Business: Contests, Publishing and Other Issues in the Poet’s Life” So you’ve written some poems. And you think they’re pretty good. Now what? Two regularly-publishing poets will talk briefly about their experiences with literary journals, contests, how they find the places to which they submit, money, and let you in on some of the secret meanings of things: SASEs, CLs, IRCs, and the dreaded “simultaneous submissions.” Also, with regards to contests, how to separate the scams from the legitimate opportunities? Can research improve your odds? Are there contest judges that should be avoided...and why? Then it’s your turn. Bring your questions and experiences. Bern Mulvey has published poems, articles, and essays in English and Japanese. His poetry collection, The Fat Sheep Everyone Wants, won the 2007 Cleveland State University Poetry Center Prize. His chapbook, The Window Tribe, won the 2004 White Eagle Coffee Store Chapbook Prize. New poems have appeared this year in Agni, Beloit Poetry Journal and Poetry East, with more forthcoming in Field. He is co-coordinator of the Japan Writers Conference. John Gribble’s poems have appeared in RUNES, Margie, The Mid-America Poetry Review, Pearl, and other publications in the US, UK, and Japan. He is a native Southern Californian, a Tokyo resident since 1993, and co-coordinator of the Japan Writers Conference. His collection of poems Another Wrong Fedora was published by Printed Matter Press in 2005.
Taylor Mignon: “Poetry Performance of Japlish Whiplash: Madness, Word Play & Rhyme are the Methods” Mignon will be reading from his virgin book of poems and from his companion volume The Thomas Kilbilmer Conflict Model Motel, with a special guest. After his performance, Mignon will try to discuss how he has shaped his particular idiomatic, avant-gardistic approach ("Sound Poetry with meaning" — musician, Samm Bennett), with reference to projectivism, syllabic meter, word play and variously nuanced approaches. Has the "quietness" of Japan helped in his verbal approach in performing poetry? Questions on organizing readings as well are welcome. _____:
Sawako Nakayasu: “An Inter-lingual Poetry Reading: texts written or performed using both Japanese and English” Sawako Nakayasu will present a poetry reading and discussion in which the poems are not translations, but are written using a combination of Japanese and English. Some works originally written in English have been reinvented for the purposes of reading in Japan to bilingual audiences, thus they deliberately explore the semantic and sonic continua between the two languages. Poetry is deliciously capable of occupying these liminal spaces between languages, where it ceases to be identifiable as any particular language – with a nod to Zukofsky’s notion of “Upper limit music, lower limit speech,” the limits of poetic language in performance will also be considered. Sawako Nakayasu was born in Japan and has lived mostly in the US since the age of six. Her most recent books are Texture Notes (Letter Machine, 2010), Hurry Home Honey (Burning Deck, 2009), and a translation of Kawata Ayane’s poetry, Time of Sky//Castles in the Air (Litmus Press, 2010). 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. More information is available here:
http://www.sawakonakayasu.net/