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Hiromi Ito

Visiting Poet

Hiromi Ito

Fierce, witty, and vibrant—and dubbed by Anne Waldman as “a true sister of the beats”—Radical feminist poet Hiromi Ito is a key figure in Japanese poetry, noted for her innovative experiments with language. Waldman goes on to praise Ito for celebrating “the exigencies and delights of the paradoxically restless/rooted female body.” As her translator, Jeffrey Angles, observes, she “taps into the cultural unconscious of Japan, or perhaps even womanhood as a whole.”

Often described as a “shamaness of poetry,” Ito debuted in 1978 with the collection The Plants and the Sky (Kusaki no sora). The leading voice in Japanese women’s poetry throughout the 80’s, she also published several essay collections on child-rearing including Yoi oppai, warui oppai (Good Breasts, Bad Breasts) and the series Onaka hoppe oshiri (Tummy, Cheeks, Bottom). In the mid-90’s, she took a break from poetry and began writing fiction, receiving critical acclaim for such works as Ra ninya (La nina, 1999). Returning to poetry with Kawara arekusa (Wild Grass on a Riverbank, 2005) and Toge-nuki: Shin Sugamo Jizô engi (The Thorn-Puller: New Tales of the Sugamo Jizô, 2007), Ito established a unique narrative space by interweaving folklore and contemporary poetry. Focusing on the themes of the body and voice, and delving into her own life, she transcends the genres of poetry, fiction, essays and translation to express the universal.

Upon the publication of her first book in English, Killing Kanoko: Selected Poems of Hiromi Ito (Action Books, 2009), Jerome Rothenberg noted her “relentlessly exuberant mind, situated somewhere between bliss and nightmare.”

Recipient of several prestigious Japanese literary prizes, including the Takami Jun Prize, the Hagiwara Sakutaro Prize, and the Izumi Shikibu Prize, Ito has also published translations, notably Karen Hesse’s Newbury Award-winning novel Out of the Dust (Biri jô no daichi) and Doctor Seuss’ The Cat in the Hat.

Select Poems

The pleasure of another’s embrace is so strong

I want nothing more

Even though situations change, I make the meals

I use the essential spices and oils

Marjoram

Dill

Coriander, fennel

Garlic

Rosemary

The people I take care of

I caught cold

The man said

The man who talks about catching cold always looks pale

He says he can’t hear because he’s caught cold

He says he can’t breathe through his nose because he’s caught cold

He says he can’t even understand the Japanese he overhears anymore

And so with all of the power in my body

I want to rain my breast milk and saliva

Upon his bad nose, his bad throat

To restore his organs to health

I want to rub and stroke him

In her sweet voice, my child too

Has a touch of cold

My youngest follows suit, her cold continues

Her habit of grasping my nipples also doesn’t disappear

When grasped, my nipples hurt

They are withered, not a drop comes out

Grow old

We grow old

Menopause should have come

And so the many daughters whom I have born

Soak up the dripping from my youngest daughter’s nose

Wipe the diarrhea pouring from my youngest daughter’s behind

Just like they were

Hundreds, thousands of mothers

Into this, they pour their accumulated desires

With her treatment, my youngest

Accepts the caresses of her older sisters

Her body becomes wrapped in song

She hears meaning in fragments

For such a long time, brown sugar, sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet

Meaning is in fragments without meaning

Sweet, sweet, sweet, coriander

Rosemary

My older sister told me she wanted to have her last child at thirty-nine

My older sister who grew up with me, five years my senior

That’s what she thought when she saw that man

That man with the axe under his arm

That man with the axe under his arm and the nose ring

She schemed to have sex with him but

When she met him, her desire to give birth had faded

My older sister’s girls are very big now

My younger sister’s dream

Is to wander her whole life

To have children in distant lands with native men

To scatter children in those lands

Or so said my younger sister who grew up with me, two years my junior

Taking the children she wants

Leaving the children behind she doesn’t

Wiping out the children she wants to kill

Marjoram

Rosemary

Fennel, coriander

We can still have more

We can still have more

If I gave birth again, I would live

With my older and younger sisters

If we wanted to touch each other erotically, we would do it

If we wanted to have sex, we’d go outside and do it

That’s is our promise

I’d eat with my sisters

My companions

Through speech and silence

We’d embrace

And listen to the sounds of

Each other’s breath

Through the night

From KILLING KANOKO: SELECTED POEMS OF HIROMI ITO,

Translated from the Japanese by Jeffrey Angles (Action Books, 2009)

In that room various body parts

Are stuffed into various bottles

We saw various deformities, various strange diseases

We could have seen various dead bodies but

The men didn’t want to go there

That’s why all I saw were parts of bodies

Body parts that had changed color in the liquid

No chance

Of them coming back to life

Look, that’s my father’s arm

The men said pointing to an arm all dried up

That’s my father’s skin

The men pointed to a patch of skin ridden with disease

That’s my father’s stomach

The men pointed to a stomach with ulcers

Those are my father’s testicles

The men pointed to testicles with elephantiasis

Those are my father’s bones and spinal column

Those are my father’s joints

Those are us, the children our father gave birth to

The men pointed to fetuses with hydrocephalus

And that is you

The men pointed to a breast with cancer

And that is my father’s uterus

The men pointed to a uterus that had grown teeth

There were a row of teeth pushing the flesh aside

I wanted to say

This is a disease, a deformity

But I did not

That is my father’s uterus

When we were boys, our father often thrashed us

Those are the cruel uterine teeth that punished us

One began to sob

Another began to dance

Meanwhile the boys suddenly broke the bottle

With the uterus with the teeth

Regardless of whether it was their father’s or anyone else’s

Regardless of whether it was the result of disease or deformity

The bottle broke

Tears and medicinal fluid

Teeth and glass shards

I thought

These actions are merely maudlin

But I did not say anything

“When I open the map and think about where I want to go

There is my father, standing everywhere on the map

I become desperate to find someplace he’s not

My father stands everywhere

My father stands everywhere on the map, I point and he’s there”

I am telling this story I heard somewhere of father and daughter

When one of the men gives me a map

A map marked in a foreign language

I know the contours of the land

I know the names of places too but

I can’t read the language

The men can read it however

So whenever I look at the map

That language

The men who read that language

Watch me with tactful eyes

Of course the man who gave me the map

And immediately started to stand watch

Regretted his actions

He writhed with regret

Be quiet (I wished)

Drop dead (I wished)

He should die the dullest death imaginable

Dashing chewed gum to the floor or

Disappearing suddenly in a burst of wind or

Starving to death or something

Still the man gives me a map in order to keep watch

No matter when, no matter where, he is standing there in the map

He appears even inside the bottles, come back to life

But the man regrets

He writhes with regret

No choice but to leave him be

Call out and

Immediately he is standing there

He is going to thrash me

The man’s blood vessels brim to overflowing

The same way they have dozens, hundreds of times

Father, older brother

Husband, lover, teacher, whatever I call him

From KILLING KANOKO: SELECTED POEMS OF HIROMI ITO,

Translated from the Japanese by Jeffrey Angles (Action Books, 2009)

Can you speak Japanese?

No, I cannot speak

Yes, I can speak

Yes, I can speak but cannot read

Yes, I can speak and read but cannot write

Yes, I can speak and write but cannot understand

I was a good child

You were a good child

We were good children

That is good

I was a bad child

You were a bad child

We were bad children

That is bad

To learn a language you must replace and repeat

I was an ugly child

You were an ugly child

We were ugly children

That is ugly

I am bored

You are bored

We are bored

That is boring

I am hateful

You are hateful

We are hateful

That is hatred

I will eat

You will eat

We will eat

That is a good appetite

I won’t eat

You won’t eat

We won’t eat

That is a bad appetite

I will make meaning

You will make meaning

We will make meaning

That is conveying language

I will use Japanese

You will use Japanese

We will use Japanese

That is Japanese

I want to rip off meaning

You want to rip off meaning

We want to rip off meaning

That is the desire to rip off meaning

I want to show contempt for language as nothing more than raw material

You want to show contempt for language as nothing more than raw material

We want to show contempt for language as nothing more than raw material

That is, language is nothing more than raw material

I will replace words mechanically and make sentences impossible in real life

You will replace words mechanically and make sentences impossible in real life

We will replace words mechanically and make sentences impossible in real life

That is replacing words mechanically and making sentences impossible in real life

Rip off meaning

Sound remains

Even so we search for meaning. The primitive reflex of a newborn sucking a finger one sticks one out

The primitive reflex of a newborn sucking a finger I stick out

The primitive reflex of a newborn sucking a finger you stick out

The primitive reflex of a newborn sucking a finger if we stick one out

The primitive reflex of a newborn sucking a finger that sticks out

As for me, meaning

As for you, meaning

As for us, meaning

Is meaning, that is

Do not communicate

As for me, do not communicate

As for you, do not communicate

As for us, do not communicate

Do not do that, that is communication

Meaning ripped apart and covered in blood is surely miserable, that is happiness

I am happy meaning covered in blood is miserable

You are happy meaning covered in blood is miserable

We are happy meaning covered in blood is miserable

The blood-covered meaning of that is blood-covered misery, that is happiness

From KILLING KANOKO: SELECTED POEMS OF HIROMI ITO,

Translated from the Japanese by Jeffrey Angles (Action Books, 2009)

About Hiromi

Poetry Center Reading Dates: October 2010