Selected Poems of Yone Noguchi (1921) is a collection of poems by Yone
Noguchi. Although he is widely recognizing as a leading poet in English
and Japanese of the modernist period, Noguchi was also a dedicated
literary critic who advocated for the cross-pollination of national
poetries. Alongside a brilliant introduction, in which he addresses the
collective power of world literature, he provides a selection of his
best poems from a quarter century of work.
"The time is coming when, as with international politics where the
understanding of the East with the West is already an unmistakable fact,
the poetries of these two different worlds will approach of one another
and exchange their cordial greetings." A firm believer in plainspoken
language and a practitioner of free verse, Noguchi envisioned his art as
a humble contribution to the union of East and West. In his early poems
written in California, he reflects on loneliness and the natural world
while reveling in the extended lines and celebratory phrases made
popular by Whitman. In his third collection, From the Eastern Sea
(1903) he settles into a more reserved prosody, characterized by
stillness and vibrant imagery. Included in this collection are his prose
poems and a series of Japanese Hokkus, whose minimalism and spiritual
clarity continue to captivate readers and poets of all languages and
nations. "Is there anything new under the sun? / Certainly there is. /
See how a bird flies, how flowers smile!" These poems not only teach us
to look, but to see the world anew.
With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript,
this edition of Yone Noguchi's Selected Poems of Yone Noguchi is a
classic of Japanese American literature reimagined for modern readers.
