We mourn the loss of the great Japanese poet, translator, and performer Kazuko Shiraishi (1931-2024).
Yumiko Tsumura, Shiraishi's longtime translator and friend, shared this note with us:
"I received the sad news that Kazuko Shiraishi passed away on June 14, 2024. I am in deep mourning thinking of my days with her from 2000 to 2017; translating her poetry for New Directions, and our personal friendship and visiting each other’s homes. I was so blessed to encounter this great Japanese and international poet who took me to a new horizon and so enriched my life. It is my pleasure and honor to donate everything she gave me to the East Asian Library at Stanford University for permanent preservation."
Shiraishi published four collections of poetry with New Directions, Seasons of Sacred Lust (1978), Let Those Who Appear (2002), My Floating Mother, City (2009), and Sea, Land, Shadow (2017). Kenneth Rexroth wrote the following in his introduction to her debut: "What makes her preeminent is sheer poetic ability. If you hear her read aloud, with or without jazz accompaniment, you know that, even if you don't speak a word of Japanese, Shiraishi is the last and the youngest and one of the best in the generation of the Beats in America, the Angry Young Men in England, Voznesensky in the USSR."
SUMMER TIME—THE FULL MOON FOUR DAYS AFTER JULY 27TH
my mother silently went to heaven four days ago
and tonight is the full moon
my mother quietly completed her work
the last penance calling living
when she breathed in and exhaled as though reaching
as far back as to the Inca Empire
the thin river of her life
trembled like a thread
now everything is fine
she is happier than the moon she does not have to wander about
among the dark clouds
she does not have to shine serenely
and slowly leave
she has obtained the permanence
of her existence by not existing ah
I forgot to say, thank you because your leaving
this world too soon and too quiet a sigh
what is called permanence is transient
because it only exists inside me
in this finite inside
infinity that is a permanence is now
floating
ah full moon
please shine
on my beloved my mother
please flutter
like a spring breeze
quietly over the repose of her soul
like
drops of light
"Summer Time—The Full Moon Four Days after July 27th" from My Floating Mother City (2009) translated by Yumiko Tsumura and Samuel Grolmes.
Published