Cat Town [Paperback]

Modernist poet Sakutarō Hagiwara’s first published book,Howling at the Moon, shattered conventional verse forms and transformed the poetic landscape of Japan. Two of its poems were removed on order of the Ministry of the Interior for “disturbing social customs.” Along with the entirety ofHowling, this volume includes all ofBlue Cat, Hagiwara's second major collection, together withCat Town, a prose-poem novella, and a substantial selection of verse from the rest of his books, giving readers the full breadth and depth of this pioneering poet's extraordinary work. A short, indispensable collection of sometimes crushingly sad poems from a Japanese master, expertly translated. Ignoring Hagiwara is like ignoring Eliot, except maybe worse. —Flavorwire

“Sakutarō Hagiwara is the ultimate modern Japanese poet–the first to perfect the use of colloquial language as a medium for poetic expression. Always rhythmic, his poetry represents a scintillating verbal and spiritual adventure, particularly in the lucid and elegant translations created
by Hiroaki Sato.” —J. Thomas Rimer

“Sakutarō Hagiwara is not just the most influential poet of his generation–his body of radically expressive work inspires the most innovative Japanese poets writing today. He is the big cheese, and Hiroaki Sato, the master translator, has the gifts necessary to render his incomparably sharp taste.”   —Forrest GanderSakutarō Hagiwara(1886–1942) was born in Maebashi, Gunma, the eldest of six children. His father was a successful physician, and Hagiwara enjoyed a sheltered and pampered childhood. At age fifteen he discovered literature and began writing classical tanka verse and publishing in literary magazines. As a young student he moved frequently throughout Japan, unable to finish college, prone to illness, and tormented by youthful lS