Gozo Yoshimasu's new collection of poems is entitled TENJO NO HEBI, MURASAKI NO HANA 天上ノ蛇、紫のハナwith the English translation "Serpents Above, Violet Flowers" (Shueisha, 2005).
Astounding as ever. His recent experiment of mixed-character writing has reached its extremity and is still going strong. No translation in the usual sense is possible. But the book is brimming with extraordinary, multilingual poesy. One gets an impression of looking at a group of shooting stars somewhere near Santiago de Compostella, or incessantly falling purple flower petals of the Jacarandas in São Paulo.
His references to the people around him continue. Is this poetry conceived as a form of collective testimony? Maybe so. Still, I have this dream--that one day the author erases all the proper nouns in these poems and send these pieces back to the a-historical or para-historical realm of anonymity.
It would be gorgeous.
