ISOBAR TENTH ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATORY READING!
On 14 October 2023 at the JAPAN WRITERS CONFERENCE in Nagoya there was a celebratory tenth-birthday reading for Isobar Press. When I started the press, I had no idea whether the idea would fly, and if it did, whether I had the ability to pilot it. Ten years and forty-six books later, to my great delight, it seems to be flourishing! In additional to myself, nine Isobar poets read (five minutes each). They all read beautifully: Janine Beichman, Yoko Danno, Warren Decker, Gregory J. Dunne, Jessica Goodfellow Ueno, Jane Joritz-Nakagawa, Philip Rowland, Eric Selland and Christopher Simons: thank you to everyone!
In fact Isobar was in evidence all through the Saturday of the conference: a workshop by C. E. J. Simons, a talk by Philip Rowland, the launch of this year’s new books by Masaya Saito, Eric Selland, and Paul Rossiter, and a reading by Yoko Danno and Jane Joritz-Nakagawa with Goro Takano.
ISOBAR PRESS POETS AT THE JAPAN WRITERS CONFERENCE
Isobar Press launched this year’s and last year’s new books on 10 October at the Japan Writers Conference; last year’s books were included as their launch was unfortunately prevented by the big 2019 typhoon. It was a Zoom event, and featured Warren Decker (The Long Side of the Midnight Sun), Gregory Dunne (Other/Wise), Jane Joritz-Nakagawa (Plan B Audio), Paul Rossiter (On Arrival and The Painting Stick), Philip Rowland (NOON: An Anthology of Short Poems) and Eric Selland (The Day Laid Bare).
Isobar Press Book Launch 2019
Isobar Press published three new books in May: NOON: An Anthology of Short Poems edited by Philip Rowland; Other/Wise by Gregory Dunne; an On Arrival by Paul Rossiter. There was a reading and book-launch for these three books at Flying Books in Shibuya on Sunday 2 June. A warm thank you to everyone who came!
Gregory, Philip and myself:
Isobar Press Poets Reading
On Sunday 7 April five Isobar Press poets read at the El Sur Foundation in Shin Daita: Jane Joritz Nakagawa (who came from Shizuoka), Yoko Danno (who came from Kobe), Eric Selland, Philip Rowland, and Paul Rossiter. Here are four of them:
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Jane Joritz-Nakagawa -
Yoko Danno -
Philip Rowland -
Eric Selland
Reading Tarō Naka in Japanese and English
A couple of photos from the 8 March Naka Tarō talk and reading at the El Sur Foundation, and the party afterwards. A lovely event: both languages in play (with occasional judicious summarising moments), so there was an ongoing flow of talk and ideas of a genuinely bilingual kind. And the reading of Naka’s poems (with their intense musicality) by Nomura Kiwao in Japanese, and of the English translations (with their intense musicality) by Andrew Houwen was extraordinary. Thank you to Nomura-san and Andy!
Reading Tarō Naka in Japanese and English
On Friday 8 March Isobar Press will be hosting a bilingual talk and reading, featuring the major contemporary poet Nomura Kiwao, who will speak about his predecessor, the modernist poet Naka Tarō, and Andrew Houwen, co-translator of Naka’s Music: Selected Poems (Isobar Press, 2018). Nomura-san will speak about the influence Naka has had on the contemporary Japanese poetry world, before giving a reading of some of his poems in Japanese; Andrew Houwen will read English translations of Naka’s work and discuss how he and co-translator Chikako Nihei approached the challenge of rendering Naka’s intense musicality into another language. The event will be held in Nomura-san’s poetry café in the El Sur Foundation near Shin Daita on the Inokashira Line – a delightful space, with beautiful furniture and walls lined with poetry-bearing bookshelves!
TITLE: Reading Tarō Naka in Japanese and English
SPEAKERS: Nomura Kiwao and Andrew Houwen
TIME: 19:00–21:00
CHARGE: ¥1,000
PLACE: El Sur Foundation, Hanegi 1-5-10, Setagaya-ku, Tokyo 156-0042
エルスール財団 東京都世田谷区羽根木1丁目5番10号
MAP: http://www.elsurfoundation.com/f_schedule.html
Tea, coffee and other drinks are available at the bar.
Free Verse: The London Poetry Book & Magazine Fair 2018
Isobar Press publisher and poet Paul Rossiter at the Isobar table a little while before the doors opened. Quite a few books went off the table during the course of the day!
Isobar will be at Free Verse: The Poetry Book Fair at Senate House in the University of London this Saturday (22nd September) 10.00–5.00. Twenty-six titles on the table, including the three latest ones: C. E. J. Simons’s formally virtuosic Underground Facility; Andrew Houwen and Chikako Nihei’s translation of Music: Selected Poems by the major late twentieth-century poet Tarô Naka; and Poems: New And Selected by a leading feminist avant-garde poet resident in Japan. If you’re in London or nearby, I hope to see you there!
The book fair is run by the the Poetry Society. For more information, please see their web page: http://www.poetrybookfair.com/p/welcome.html
POETRY AT BOOKS KINOKUNIYA TOKYO
From the Carso to Kushiro: Translation and Transformation
Thank you everybody who came on Friday 6th April to the Isobar reading at Books Kinokuniya Tokyo, with Andrew Fitzsimons and Sergio Maria Calatroni reading Giueseppe Ungaretti, and Nadine Willems and myself reading Sarashina Genzō. And thank you to Kinokuniya for the opportunity.
Unfortunately, I forgot to take my camera, so I don’t have any photos of the event itself, but here’s one of Andrew and Nadine at the post-gig party, taken by Greg Strong. Thanks to Greg and everyone else!
READING AT THE ITALIAN CULTURAL INSTITUTE
Full house at the Italian Cultural Institute for the launch of Andrew Fitzsimons‘s version of Ungaretti’s First World War book, The Sunken Keep! Andy read and discussed Ungaretti’s work with Masahiro Tsuji from Meiji University (photo below). I don’t have a photo of Sergio Maria Calatroni, alas – sorry, Sergio! – but he read the Italian originals beautifully and spoke most movingly about his responses to the poems while creating his paintings. It was a powerful event! – and the Italian/Japanese/English trilingual jigsaw worked really well thanks to the two great simultaneous interpreters. Sergio’s full set of 33 paintings (16 of which are reproduced in the book) will be on display on the ground floor of the Italian Cultural Institute until Thursday 8 February (closed on Saturday 3 and Sunday 4) – I really recommend it. Many, many thanks to the Institute for enabling this!
ISOBAR AT BAR IZNT IN KOBE
Thanks a lot to everybody, readers and audience, who came to Bar Iznt in Kobe on Sunday 4th June for the Isobar reading! Click here to see pictures of Peter Robinson launching Approach to Distance: Selected Poems from Japan, with Mayako Murai reading Miki Iwata‘s Japanese translations, and the other of Yoko Danno, Jessica Goodfellow and Osaka poet Trane DeVore reading from their series of linked quatrains.
ISOBAR AT BOOKS KINOKUNIYA TOKYO
Tohoku: Two Voices in English: A Bilingual Poetry Reading
東北 ふたつの英語の声 詩のバイリンガル朗読会
Thank you very much everybody who came to the Isobar reading at Books Kinokuniya Tokyo, and special thanks to all the readers: Peter Robinson , Saito Masaya, Miki Iwata, Holly Thompson and Philip Rowland. And to Mona Sumi at Kinokuniya for hosting the event so nicely! Click here to see some pictures of Peter, Masaya, and Peter & Miki reading, and also of Paul, Holly & Philip reading part 3 (‘three voices: countryside’) of Masaya’s Snow Bones.
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