Tarō Naka (1922-2014) is one of the most respected poets in post-war Japan, having won several major Japanese poetry prizes. His poetry reflects his life-long exploration of Buddhism, traditional and modern literature, language, art, and philosophy. He developed a poetics that paid attention to what he describes as the visual, phonetic, and historical aspects of words and how each word is a unique combination of these. The poems in this volume are selected from across his poetic output of some seventy years, ranging from his stark, uncompromising depictions of the war and its immediate aftermath to the formal experimentation of the 1965 collection often considered his magnum opus, Music – from which this book takes its title – and The First Emperor, his 2003 nō play. Music: Selected Poems, consisting of strong translations by Andrew Houwen and Chikako Nihei, and including an illuminating introduction, is the first book-length collection of Naka’s work in English.

August 2018, 138 pages, 5.5 x 8.5 in / 216 x 140 mm, ISBN 978-4-907359-23-2

‘Naka’s poetry is known for his autonomic, associative, and playful use of the Japanese language, even as it is solidly based on his Buddhist worldview of the void, nothingness. Music: Selected Poems, with a full introduction and ample explications will throw light on this singular poetic voice.’ – Hiroaki Sato

‘Naka is remarkable, and these poems are haunting.’ – Sasha Dugdale

‘Yes, [Naka’s] poems are difficult, but we should not be intimidated by the toil, because underneath the challenge of making sense of this linguistic density is an immense richness of beauty that a poetry lover cannot afford to miss’. Michael Tsang: ‘Take on the Challenge: Tarō Naka’s Music: Selected Poems‘, in Cha: An Asian Literary Journal. Click here to read the whole review .

Click here to download a PDF of some extracts from Music: Selected Poems.

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