The major influence and subject of Takamura's work was Naganuma Cheiko, an early member of the feminist movement Seitosha. They were married in 1914 and modelled their relationship on sexual equality. In 1931, Cheiko began to show signs of schizophrenia and, in 1932, she attempted suicide. She was institutionalised in 1935 and died there of tuberculosis in 1938. The poems in this volume are touching portraits of his wife and their life together from the time of their courtship until some years after her death.

Takamura Kotaro (1883-1956) drew on his studies in New York, London, and Paris to lay the foundations in Japan for Western-style Japanese sculpture through his intricate wood carvings and powerful bronzes. But Takamura also composed poems infused with startling energy, directness, and narrative clarity. Among the first to use the vernacular masterfully in verse, he has long been recognized as one of Japan's premier modern poets. Takamura thus stood in the confluence of two artistic currents, both shaping and being shaped by them. His personal experiences, from exultation to tragedy, found expression through this dynamic. Hiroaki Sato now captures a lucid picture of Takamura's eloquent struggle with art and with life. Originally published in 1980 as Chieko and Other Poems, this expanded volume includes a new introduction and a new selection of Takamura's essays on art and other subjects. The poetry included here is divided into three parts: "The Journey" represents a chronology of the poet's life; "Chieko" is a selection of poems about Takamura's wife which describes his devotion to her for more than thirty years through courtship and marriage, during her illness and insanity, and continuing after her death; and "A Brief History of Imbecility" is a sequence of twenty autobiographical poems composed in 1947. The essays, appearing in English for the first time, offer a more complete understanding of Takamura's relationship to art, his complex experience of Paris, and his views on beauty and creativity. Included here are "The Latter Half of Chieko's Life," a moving prose complement to the Chieko poems, and "A Last Glance at the Third Ministry of Education Art Exhibition," a scathing review of the modern art world, the first of its kind in Japan.

An award-winning, big-hearted time capsule of one class’s poems during a transformative school year. A great pick for fans of Margarita Engle and Eileen Spinelli. Eighteen kids, one year of poems, one school set to close. Two yellow bulldozers crouched outside, ready to eat the building in one greedy gulp. But look out, bulldozers. Ms. Hill’s fifth-grade class has plans for you. They’re going to speak up and work together to save their school. Families change and new friendships form as these terrific kids grow up and move on in this whimsical novel-in-verse about finding your voice and making sure others hear it. Honors and Praise: Winner of a Cybils Award in Poetry Winner of an Arnold Adoff Poetry Honor Award for New Voices An NCTE Notable Verse Novel A Bank Street College of Education Best Children’s Book of the Year An ILA-CBC Children’s Choice Nominated for the Pennsylvania Young Reader’s Choice Award, the Wisconsin State Reading Association Children’s Book Award, the Rhode Island Children’s Book Award, and the Great Stone Face Award (New Hampshire), Lectio Book Award Master List “This gently evocative study of change in all its glory and terror would make a terrific read-aloud or introduction to a poetry unit. A most impressive debut.” —School Library Journal “Sure to inspire the poet in all of us, young and old.” —Mark Goldblatt, author of Twerp

The lyrical world of Chinese poetry in faithful translations by Kenneth Rexroth.

This anthology brings together in convenient form a rich selection of Japanese poetry in traditional genres dating from the earliest times to the 20th century. With more than 1,100 poems, it is the most varied and comprehensive selection of traditional Japanese poetry now available in English. A romanized Japanese text accompanies each poem, and the book is illustrated with 20 line drawings.

Five books of essays in one volume from the Booker Prize–winner and “one of the most ambitious and divisive political essayists of her generation” (The Washington Post). With a new introduction by Arundhati Roy, this new collection begins with her pathbreaking book The Cost of Living—published soon after she won the Booker Prize for her novel The God of Small Things—in which she forcefully condemned India’s nuclear tests and its construction of enormous dam projects that continue to displace countless people from their homes and communities. The End of Imagination also includes her nonfiction works Power Politics, War Talk, Public Power in the Age of Empire, and An Ordinary Person’s Guide to Empire, which include her widely circulated and inspiring writings on the US invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, the need to confront corporate power, and the hollowing out of democratic institutions globally. Praise for Arundhati Roy “The fierceness with which Arundhati Roy loves humanity moves my heart.” —Alice Walker, Pulitzer Prize–winning author and recipient of the LennonOno Grant for Peace Award “Arundhati Roy combines her brilliant style as a novelist with her powerful commitment to social justice in producing these eloquent, penetrating essays.” —Howard Zinn, author of Political Awakenings and Indispensable Zinn “Arundhati Roy is incandescent in her brilliance and her fearlessness. And in these extraordinary essays—which are clarions for justice, for witness, for a true humanity—Roy is at her absolute best.” —Junot Díaz, author of the Pulitzer Prize–winning The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao “One of the most confident and original thinkers of our time.” —Naomi Klein, author of No Is Not Enough and The Battle For Paradise “Arundhati Roy calls for ‘factual precision’ alongside of the ‘real precision of poetry.’ Remarkably, she combines those achievements to a degree that few can hope to approach.” —Noam Chomsky, leading public intellectual and author of Hopes and Prospects “India’s most impassioned critic of globalization and American influence.” —The New York Times