Such a hectic spring it has been. And it's over, transferred immediately to autumn.
From March 30 to April 3 I was in Chicago attending the AAS annual meeting. We had a panel called "Omniphony in Japan," in which I talked about the concepts of omniphony and exophony (thus presenting the general framework), Doug Slaymaker on Yoko Tawada, Kyoko Omori on Hiromi Ito, and Catherine Ryu on Yi Yan-ji. The panel went very well.
Then after only three nights back in Tokyo, I relocated to Auckland, New Zealand! I shall be based in this city from now on! What lift one gets out of a relocation. To begin everything anew has been my obsession, and this is something that comes closest to its ideal.
Auckland as I knew it would be is a loveliest Polynesian city. It out-Seattles Seattle in many ways, lush green, undulating terrain, sweet moisture, unpretentious cosmopolitanism, everything. My life will take a different shape here... You will hear more about this.
In that short period in Tokyo I wrote a piece called "X Southwest X", an over-250-lines poem about my remembrances of the American Southwest border culture. It will appear in the next issue of Gendaishi techo (Contemporary Poetry). My hunch is that it marks a turning point in what I write.
I'll rewrite it in English one day.
