Kazuko Shiraishi

[azmuse]

Ok, nobody commented on Richard Brautigan, but have any of you heard of Ms. Shiraishi? She won, among other things, the Purple Medal Ribbon from the Emperor of Japan. My brother and I saw her in San Francisco a few years back. This is "The Cuckoo Sings" from her book Let Those Who Appear (2002). Great! to see if she's ever anywhere near your town.

The cuckoo sings
The green laughs - the light dances - the water spurts up
That is love - is an alarm
The woods have had their beards shaved off
The world lifts the skirt of the earth
Tears the green off every nook and cranny - and vomits
Into the oceans - what's more
Pokes holes in the sky - these are the little traitors
Freon gas - the little guerilla - soars up into the sky
Into the sky
Prepare moment by moment for the final hour of the earth!
Those who receive the kiss of the sun in the South Seas
Without knowing it - receive one grain - of death's stain
The five senses of the four seasons gradually lose their rhythm
Snow falls in the summer - sunstroke happens in winter
Nevertheless - whether it does not know it - or does know it
A single voice with a beautiful melody - of premonition
Perching on one second of a hundred million years - the cuckoo sings

[piquant]

I may be in love.

So far, I've only read just this poem, and your signature, but I truly love this poet.

Her work is vivid, overflowing with sobbing life, and so rhythmical that it asks to be chanted and danced to. It conveys emotion. Everything happens in the brief space between one of the cuckoo's notes and another. This is why I like it--it is instantaneous.

[azmuse]

I'm glad you liked her, piquant; I was hoping there would be other responses after you wrote, but that's okay. She was wonderful live - read off of a long white scroll written in Japanese, and was acccompanied by a stunning trumpeteer who'd won a Dizzy Gillepsie award (wouldn't you know I forgot his name - Oops).
I bought her book as soon as the show was over, and was transfixed; her writing is so special...

[piquant]

I can picture the reading. I bet it was very effective. Where did you hear her read at? The only poets I ever get to hear read are the ones that come to campus for a small fee. I've yet to be impressed. You're from philly area though, so I bet there's more culture than out here in hickville.

[azmuse]

We heard her read at the Unitarian Church in San Francisco. (On some obscure hill downtown with no parking, of course .)
There is a lot of culture here in Philly, Dr. Sonia Sanchez, for example, but for the last three years I was in Northern California.
...Are you anywhere near UPitt, should they ever have must-see guest artists?

[fayefaye]

I loved it too.