killing kanoko / wild grass on the riverbank

BY Itō Hiromi / TRanslated from japanese BY jeffrey angles

Winner, 2006 Takami Jun Prize

I want to get rid of Kanoko

I want to get rid of filthy little Kanoko

I want to get rid of or kill Kanoko who bites off my nipples.

A landmark dual collection by one of the most important contemporary Japanese poets, in a “generous and beautifully rendered” translation.

Now widely taught as a feminist classic, Killing Kanoko is a defiantly autobiographical exploration of sexuality, community, and postpartum depression, featuring some of Ito’s most famous poems.

Set simultaneously in the California desert and Japan, Wild Grass on the Riverbank focuses on migration, nature, and movement. At once grotesque and vertiginous, this later collection interweaves mythologies, language, sexuality and place into a genre-busting narrative of what it is to be a migrant.

PRAISE

‘Affronting yet absorbing, oracular yet darkly humorous, the verdant language of Killing Kanoko / Wild Grass on the Riverbank is remarkable in its resistance to easy consumption, demanding to be read always in its relationship to limitation, power, and the porous membrane between the living and the dead. For Itō to ask anything less of her readers would not do justice to her “growing, laughing, living body” (‘I Am Anjuhimeko’) of innovative work – still humming in its radical charge, and the “strange meetingplaces” of our current moment.‘ — Alexa Winik, The Poetry Review

‘Boundaries between the self, other people, plants and animals are self-consciously porous; there is a constant cycle of consumption and secretion: “I scratched him lightly, but his skin grew raw, and liquid began seeping out / Mother said, all living things get eaten by mosquitoes”. Itō entwines the sensual and the grotesque in this radical, relentless collection.‘ — Joanna Lee, The Guardian (The best recent poetry collections, Feb 2020)

‘Japan's most prominent feminist poet’ — The Poetry Foundation

“Whether Ito’s strong voice overwhelms or inspires, there is no denying her power. Any student of Japanese literature must experience her bold, groundbreaking, unrelenting genius.” – Japan Times

“Bizarrely alluring, the narrative poem reconstitutes femininity, immigration, sex, and nature, with defamiliarization being the first step in an innovative push forward.” – Publishers Weekly

MORE INFORMATION

• Publication date: 13 February 2020

• Format: B-format paperback (198mm × 127mm)

• Extent: 224pp

• ISBNs: 978-1-911284-42-0 (print) / 978-1-911284-41-3 (ebook)

• Rights held: WEL