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The Narrow Road to the Interior: Poems
An expansive new work from a poet of "rigorous intelligence, fierce anger, and deep vulnerability" (Mark Doty).
Kimiko Hahn, "a welcome voice of experimentation and passion" ( Bloomsbury Review ), takes up the Japanese prose-poetry genre zuihitsu literally "running brush," which utilizes tactics such as juxtaposition, contradiction, and broad topical variety in exploring her various identities as mother and lover, wife and poet, daughter of varied traditions.
Kimiko Hahn, "a welcome voice of experimentation and passion" ( Bloomsbury Review ), takes up the Japanese prose-poetry genre zuihitsu literally "running brush," which utilizes tactics such as juxtaposition, contradiction, and broad topical variety in exploring her various identities as mother and lover, wife and poet, daughter of varied traditions.
109 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2006
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552 people want to read
About the author
Kimiko Hahn
39 books66 followersKimiko Hahn is the author of seven poetry collections. The Unbearable Heart won the Before Columbus Foundation’s American Book Award. She has received numerous grants, including a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship and a Lila Wallace-Reader’s Digest Award. She teaches at Queens College/The City University of New York.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 35 reviews
October 28, 2009
I find it interesting that several people have remarked on how much they enjoyed reading The Narrow Road to the Interior, mentioning in particular how easily it read and flowed from entry to entry. Although I had a somewhat similar experience in reading The Narrow Road to the Interior as I enjoyed Hahn’s playing with language, form, and image immensely, I often had difficulty reading it and found myself getting frustrated with the zuihitsu style about halfway through. Perhaps it is because I was reading the pieces in the first half of the book back to back, but even so, I still found many of the pieces quite exhausting and challenging as much as they were beautiful and thoughtfully rendered. As much as I tried to surrender myself to the language and let go of my intellect and the automatic critic inside of my head I couldn’t. I kept underlining sentences and putting check marks next to paragraphs I found particularly important, wondering how everything connected, attempting to find a critical framework from which to discuss this book. Yet, Hahn continued to subvert my expectations.
For example, I was surprised when about halfway through the book Hahn began to give us pieces in which she talked about the zuihitsu form explicitly and her relationship with it. There is something about the self-reflexivity at this point in the book that helped me open up to her and engage in the zuihitsu more freely than I could before even though I was moved by her other pieces, particularly those concerning her daughters in relation to herself. Perhaps it is because I gained a further understanding of what zuihitsu means to her when she says in “Pulse and Impulse”:
With or without fluency, I can still love the zuihitsu as a kind of air current: and what arises is very subjective, intuitive and spontaneous – qualities I trust. Also a clear voice.
That it was cultivated by a woman and feels significant – as a writing space for women. It is by its own nature a fragmented anything. I love long erratic pieces into which I can thrash around – make a mess. Lose the intellect…
To invite the intellect back in for re-vision. (49)
As soon as I read this section, something in me let go and trusted Hahn to take me where she needed me to go, perhaps to where she already had been earlier in the book, but needed to continue working out. The ability to work through thought-processes, reoccurring fears, haunting images, and feelings and thoughts concerning literature is something I love about the zuihitsu, yet is probably what also makes it difficult for me to read. I find it so incredibly complicated, thought-provoking, inspiring, yet also exhausting. The intimacy I feel with Hahn’s first person voice and even the third person she occasionally uses works as though it were a mirror, constantly making me think of how I relate to what she’s doing on the page. The associations she makes and the jumping around in time are almost too close for comfort as this style is so reminiscent of the anxious thought-patterns I have often observed in myself. However, Hahn somehow makes these jumps precise and logical. Even if they do not appear so on the surface, there is something logical about her poetic intuition.
For example, I was surprised when about halfway through the book Hahn began to give us pieces in which she talked about the zuihitsu form explicitly and her relationship with it. There is something about the self-reflexivity at this point in the book that helped me open up to her and engage in the zuihitsu more freely than I could before even though I was moved by her other pieces, particularly those concerning her daughters in relation to herself. Perhaps it is because I gained a further understanding of what zuihitsu means to her when she says in “Pulse and Impulse”:
With or without fluency, I can still love the zuihitsu as a kind of air current: and what arises is very subjective, intuitive and spontaneous – qualities I trust. Also a clear voice.
That it was cultivated by a woman and feels significant – as a writing space for women. It is by its own nature a fragmented anything. I love long erratic pieces into which I can thrash around – make a mess. Lose the intellect…
To invite the intellect back in for re-vision. (49)
As soon as I read this section, something in me let go and trusted Hahn to take me where she needed me to go, perhaps to where she already had been earlier in the book, but needed to continue working out. The ability to work through thought-processes, reoccurring fears, haunting images, and feelings and thoughts concerning literature is something I love about the zuihitsu, yet is probably what also makes it difficult for me to read. I find it so incredibly complicated, thought-provoking, inspiring, yet also exhausting. The intimacy I feel with Hahn’s first person voice and even the third person she occasionally uses works as though it were a mirror, constantly making me think of how I relate to what she’s doing on the page. The associations she makes and the jumping around in time are almost too close for comfort as this style is so reminiscent of the anxious thought-patterns I have often observed in myself. However, Hahn somehow makes these jumps precise and logical. Even if they do not appear so on the surface, there is something logical about her poetic intuition.
June 12, 2007
Kimiko Hahn’s poems abound with sharp internal dialogues; poems questioning themselves as well as the world around them. And even when it seems like the narrator is definitely in first-person, there is her subtle altering of voice--connected to the
There is a truth-seeking sense of play--not frivolity--in the language she chooses and creates; she takes words, bends them-- wound and wind, detail and derail, teas (the drink) and tease (the action), construct and constrict, egrets turning into regrets. And it never mere wordplay; as she takes words and objects and changes them, she alters both their physical nature, and the poem we are reading, adding layer upon layer of meaning and sensuality--in being tied to our senses--as she does.
Connected to this is her exploring the unpredictable nature of memory, of recalling one thing to have it slip into another, never taking the easy glib route to what is true, always frankly admitting that it may not be a direct line from one’s experience of a thing that gets us there, if we get there at all. There is a desire, alive and pulsing, to ponder what has happened, no matter how painful, to discover always more about where we’ve been, so we can know where we are. In “The Tunnel,” it is reflected with the simple line “She wanted to reread Yukiguni in the winter and see if what she had loved she still loved.”
There are unusually evocative echoes in many of the poems; for me, hearing a line like “…I ask for a glass of water. He brings a/spare comforter” suggest the blues standard “I Asked for Water, He Gave Me Gasoline.” There are lost intimacies, hard questions about what we let go of, how we can let go of things that once were our world, and the aching evocation of what comes after.
Kimiko’s poems ask the reader to trust language to reveal, to allow oneself to be pulled farther along, trusting the writer and the work to not let go of us as we plumb hers and our own emotional depths. In Pulse and Impulse, she writes the heartbreaking line “Delicious because it is delicious to realize feelings.”
There is a truth-seeking sense of play--not frivolity--in the language she chooses and creates; she takes words, bends them-- wound and wind, detail and derail, teas (the drink) and tease (the action), construct and constrict, egrets turning into regrets. And it never mere wordplay; as she takes words and objects and changes them, she alters both their physical nature, and the poem we are reading, adding layer upon layer of meaning and sensuality--in being tied to our senses--as she does.
Connected to this is her exploring the unpredictable nature of memory, of recalling one thing to have it slip into another, never taking the easy glib route to what is true, always frankly admitting that it may not be a direct line from one’s experience of a thing that gets us there, if we get there at all. There is a desire, alive and pulsing, to ponder what has happened, no matter how painful, to discover always more about where we’ve been, so we can know where we are. In “The Tunnel,” it is reflected with the simple line “She wanted to reread Yukiguni in the winter and see if what she had loved she still loved.”
There are unusually evocative echoes in many of the poems; for me, hearing a line like “…I ask for a glass of water. He brings a/spare comforter” suggest the blues standard “I Asked for Water, He Gave Me Gasoline.” There are lost intimacies, hard questions about what we let go of, how we can let go of things that once were our world, and the aching evocation of what comes after.
Kimiko’s poems ask the reader to trust language to reveal, to allow oneself to be pulled farther along, trusting the writer and the work to not let go of us as we plumb hers and our own emotional depths. In Pulse and Impulse, she writes the heartbreaking line “Delicious because it is delicious to realize feelings.”
May 1, 2018
Has the feel of traditional poetry with its language and detail, but defies expectations with structure (prose, almost essay-like) & subject matter (contemporary motherhood, divorce, & the female body.)
March 23, 2017
I read a poem by Hahn in Poetry that floored me with its style and intricacy. This book did not do it for me. Though I admired her efforts to interweave multiple narratives in a way that portrays the complexity of human experience, the book felt more like a journal than a work of art and I did not love it like I wanted to.
October 27, 2021
some of the poems hit really close at home and the themes were all i want in poetry but it needed a little polishing
June 24, 2025
a thoroughly refreshing collection of poems.
May 21, 2017
The Narrow Road to the Interior is a lush and stunning meeting of traditional and new, both in form (borrowing older Japanese poem forms like tanka and zuihitsu and bringing the styling of the modern prose poem to their framework) and content (the poems could not be accused of being anything other than grounded in the present, but still carry echoes of the groundbreaking first female Japanese authors). Kimiko Hahn's collection is playful, articulate, fragmented, and honest, taking on subjects like like in NYC after 9/11, motherhood, language, romances, and more, and how these all intersect. Indeed, the fragmented zuihitsu form lends itself well to the conflation of disparate subjects, all coalescing within the author.
April 28, 2007
i do like this book a lot. rona says it's more heady and not enough heart, which i understand (for direct quote go to http://ronafor.blogspot.com/). but on the other hand i love that she does this thing that i'm obsessed with - imagine the etymologies of kanji... except i bet she actually knows the etymologies. and i like that she still pursues a "japanese" aesthetic while questioning her complicity in perpetuating the orientaist imagination of japanese women... at least i think she does.
October 1, 2021
Excellent poetry, paying homage to Basho while providing a distinct vision unique to Hahn. Both a skillful demonstration of poetic form and a series of poems that actually have something worth saying.
May 6, 2025
It's such a lovely delicate book.
May 1, 2019
I enjoyed reading this book using the Japanese syle zuihitsu. I learned about her book at AWP2019 in a hybrid panel titled "Cheating on Poetry: On Writing Nonfiction Too," Beth Ann Fennelly, recommended it along with the book, "Family Resemblance: An Anthology and Exploration of 8 Hybrid Literary Genres." (It has examples and comments on the forms; and I am reading this as well.)
Kimiko Hahn's book is a hybrid with chapters of book written in different forms, some are "loosely based on the form" [tanka]; Others address different pieces of literature or making use of literature, so in the chapter "Trading Words" about September 11th, she uses words from W. H. Auden's "September 1, 1939" that are bolded and italicized. This is one of the most potent sections. She has chapters: "Firsts in No Particular Order," "Things That Make Me Cry Instantly," and, "Things That Are Full of Pleasure," each a page long with separate sentences/statements. She covers motherhood, being a wife, a divorce, a lover, a teacher, travel and family. One that comes from her teaching is "Asian American Lit. Final" in which she lists assignments numbered, with some letters, sprinkled in the book are emails too, and notes to herself with dates, as if in a journal.
Below is directly from the book, what she says about zuihitsu in the book from the first chapter Compass, as an introduction to the book and the form:
Dear L—
You asked for a little compass. Thank you!
I was looking for a definition of the zuihitsu from my shelf of Japanese texts, but discovered none gave me more than a sentence or two. None seemed especially scholarly—which might be a good thing. None offered the sense of disorder that feels so integral. Here is what I did find:
[Literally. "following [the impulses of] the brush," and consisting of brief essays on random topics
—Donald Keene, Seeds in the Heart
[Miscellany] . . . partly of reminiscences partly of entries in diary-form
—Arthur Waley, The Pillow Book
[S]tray notes, expressing random manner
—Makoto Ueda, Principles of Classical Japanese Literature, Earl Miner, ed.
In the Notes, back of book, she writes:
"Compass" was gleaned from a talk I gave, "Disorder as Order." Although I had read and reread the zuihitsu of Sei Shonagon (and Kenko) for many years, I am in debt to Ed Friedman for inviting me to actually try my hand at writing one—maybe two decades ago—for a celebration of her work at The Poetry Project at St. Mark's Church. Also to Margaret Holly for turning my attention to Formless in Form: Kenko, "Tsurezuregusa," and the Rhetoric of Japanese Fragmentary Prose by Linda H. Chance, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997.
Then, at the end of the Notes section is this:
"Conspiring with Shikishi"
I am responding to the Japanese tradition of literary allusion. The italicized tanka in each section are from String of Beads: Complete Poems of Princess Shikishi, translated by Hiroaki Sato, Honoluly: University of Hawaii Press, 1993. This has been an immensely crucial text for me and I hope that Hiro's ears have been buzzing wildy!
Kimiko Hahn's book is a hybrid with chapters of book written in different forms, some are "loosely based on the form" [tanka]; Others address different pieces of literature or making use of literature, so in the chapter "Trading Words" about September 11th, she uses words from W. H. Auden's "September 1, 1939" that are bolded and italicized. This is one of the most potent sections. She has chapters: "Firsts in No Particular Order," "Things That Make Me Cry Instantly," and, "Things That Are Full of Pleasure," each a page long with separate sentences/statements. She covers motherhood, being a wife, a divorce, a lover, a teacher, travel and family. One that comes from her teaching is "Asian American Lit. Final" in which she lists assignments numbered, with some letters, sprinkled in the book are emails too, and notes to herself with dates, as if in a journal.
Below is directly from the book, what she says about zuihitsu in the book from the first chapter Compass, as an introduction to the book and the form:
Dear L—
You asked for a little compass. Thank you!
I was looking for a definition of the zuihitsu from my shelf of Japanese texts, but discovered none gave me more than a sentence or two. None seemed especially scholarly—which might be a good thing. None offered the sense of disorder that feels so integral. Here is what I did find:
[Literally. "following [the impulses of] the brush," and consisting of brief essays on random topics
—Donald Keene, Seeds in the Heart
[Miscellany] . . . partly of reminiscences partly of entries in diary-form
—Arthur Waley, The Pillow Book
[S]tray notes, expressing random manner
—Makoto Ueda, Principles of Classical Japanese Literature, Earl Miner, ed.
In the Notes, back of book, she writes:
"Compass" was gleaned from a talk I gave, "Disorder as Order." Although I had read and reread the zuihitsu of Sei Shonagon (and Kenko) for many years, I am in debt to Ed Friedman for inviting me to actually try my hand at writing one—maybe two decades ago—for a celebration of her work at The Poetry Project at St. Mark's Church. Also to Margaret Holly for turning my attention to Formless in Form: Kenko, "Tsurezuregusa," and the Rhetoric of Japanese Fragmentary Prose by Linda H. Chance, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997.
Then, at the end of the Notes section is this:
"Conspiring with Shikishi"
I am responding to the Japanese tradition of literary allusion. The italicized tanka in each section are from String of Beads: Complete Poems of Princess Shikishi, translated by Hiroaki Sato, Honoluly: University of Hawaii Press, 1993. This has been an immensely crucial text for me and I hope that Hiro's ears have been buzzing wildy!
May 14, 2022
Poems about motherhood, her love life, and grieving her mother’s death. Can be interesting, but it wasn’t for me. It felt like this was a collection of random thoughts that were jotted down and eventually turned into a book. Like, you know that friend that chunters, and once in a while says something unintentionally interesting, so you continue listening knowing that 98% of what follows is still going to be monotonous? This was that friend. Out of its entirety, two lines stood out.
The first from “Wellfleet, Midsummer”:
“You close the bedside window this summer night—but I feel the draft even so. And it is not possible to draw you closer without suffering.” She knows the relationship is dead. I like the anguish.
The poem “Trading Words” was about the 9/11 attacks on the WTC Towers and her thoughts in the proceeding days. At ten days, this was the entry:
“There’s little else to talk about: bioterrorism or what to cook for dinner.” I read that line as a joke.
I would’ve given it 1 star, but I appreciated the works and authors of Asian literature that were frequently mentioned.
The first from “Wellfleet, Midsummer”:
“You close the bedside window this summer night—but I feel the draft even so. And it is not possible to draw you closer without suffering.” She knows the relationship is dead. I like the anguish.
The poem “Trading Words” was about the 9/11 attacks on the WTC Towers and her thoughts in the proceeding days. At ten days, this was the entry:
“There’s little else to talk about: bioterrorism or what to cook for dinner.” I read that line as a joke.
I would’ve given it 1 star, but I appreciated the works and authors of Asian literature that were frequently mentioned.
November 25, 2025
I wanted badly to connect with this poet, and I felt a rush of excitement reading the second poem in the collection, "Utica Station: Dep. 10:07 a.m. to N.Y. Penn Station." I loved the stream of consciousness and the language and I felt like I was right there on the train in the station. However, I found most of the remaining poems inaccessible, at least to me. Although the language was at times beautiful, I couldn't wrap my head around what the poet was trying to express. Also, I felt the poems to often be disjointed, with random words thrown in that didn't connect to the rest of the poem. Or if they did, I certainly couldn't ascertain the connection.
I also enjoyed "Boerum Hill, September (2001)" and "Trading Words," creative expressions on the effects of the September 11 terrorist attacks. Another two that spoke to me: "Things That Make Me Cry Instantly -" and "Things that Are Full of Pleasure-." But overall, I felt I needed to know more about certain forms of Japanese poetry to fully appreciate the collection.
I also enjoyed "Boerum Hill, September (2001)" and "Trading Words," creative expressions on the effects of the September 11 terrorist attacks. Another two that spoke to me: "Things That Make Me Cry Instantly -" and "Things that Are Full of Pleasure-." But overall, I felt I needed to know more about certain forms of Japanese poetry to fully appreciate the collection.
January 17, 2023
I’m reading this for a class on Zuihitsu poetry as mandatory reading, coming at it as somebody with no formal poetry training. It took me a little bit to wrap myself around the style but found the cadence and flow more approachable by the second half. This is partly by gaining familiarity and partly as the subject matter became more concretely tangible in examining the poet’s journey working through the adversity of her personal life, digesting the events of 9/11, and processing her relationship to the style. Impressively revelatory and uninhibited without being melodramatic or awkward, her stories and her internal milieu used a language so approachable and compelling that it easily took you along for the ebbs and tides of her brush stroke. Highly recommend for those like me who are not scholars of the art, but have an interest in learning a new style of poetry
February 13, 2025
Super interesting introduction to the zuihitsu form, I love a form that defies definition!! The summer tankas were especially beautiful. Felt the souring joys and pains of motherhood and relationships of all kinds very deeply from this raw place Hahn writes from:
“The mother and infant sleep now, the boy like a cat on her chest. Or as if her heart rested on the outside of her chest. I do recall that lovely pressure.”
“It is so easy to abandon the self— as the lover becomes a constant day-dream which life interrupts.”
“In the total pool a half dozen hermit crabs scuffle over an empty shell which the largest wins but cannot fit into. That.”
“I could not return to the body that contained only the literal world.
Where sparrow does not suggest sorrow.
Where sorrow does not suggest sorry.”
“The mother and infant sleep now, the boy like a cat on her chest. Or as if her heart rested on the outside of her chest. I do recall that lovely pressure.”
“It is so easy to abandon the self— as the lover becomes a constant day-dream which life interrupts.”
“In the total pool a half dozen hermit crabs scuffle over an empty shell which the largest wins but cannot fit into. That.”
“I could not return to the body that contained only the literal world.
Where sparrow does not suggest sorrow.
Where sorrow does not suggest sorry.”
June 26, 2021
This book taught me that writing and poetry doesn’t need to be constrained by logic and traditional structure. I find this knowledge immensely freeing.
I’ll admit that I felt very lost while I was reading most of it but, even so, I still enjoyed the experience. The two poems (if you want to call them that) which I will definitely return to are Pulse and Impulse and The Orient.
I enjoyed stepping very far out of my comfort zone with this and I definitely plan to read more Kimiko Hahn in the future.
I’ll admit that I felt very lost while I was reading most of it but, even so, I still enjoyed the experience. The two poems (if you want to call them that) which I will definitely return to are Pulse and Impulse and The Orient.
I enjoyed stepping very far out of my comfort zone with this and I definitely plan to read more Kimiko Hahn in the future.
July 27, 2024
from "Conspiring with Shikishi"
"iii
The reality of the dark, of leopard-flower seeds, wasn't at all better than reliable dreams! --Anonymous from Kokinshū
Not even knowing the reality of the fleeting dark, I wander along from dream to dream -- Shikishi
The reality of day lilies twisting into brown froth -- I can cry for my mother in any season.
The seeds of those leopard flowers I do not know--nor what takes root in your breast that you pluck out--in order to live with me, my daughter."
"iii
The reality of the dark, of leopard-flower seeds, wasn't at all better than reliable dreams! --Anonymous from Kokinshū
Not even knowing the reality of the fleeting dark, I wander along from dream to dream -- Shikishi
The reality of day lilies twisting into brown froth -- I can cry for my mother in any season.
The seeds of those leopard flowers I do not know--nor what takes root in your breast that you pluck out--in order to live with me, my daughter."
June 26, 2021
I took notes while reading this poem collection in regards to the creative ways of writing a poem:
1. Default form for poetry is no longer necessary
2. Never thought that you could write a poem to respond to another
3. Mail exchanges and twitter threads are also valid forms of poems—if validity is a thing
4. Create a poem or two, mix them but in random order of lines
5. Yes, poems could be in the form of narrative sentences as well!
1. Default form for poetry is no longer necessary
2. Never thought that you could write a poem to respond to another
3. Mail exchanges and twitter threads are also valid forms of poems—if validity is a thing
4. Create a poem or two, mix them but in random order of lines
5. Yes, poems could be in the form of narrative sentences as well!
December 28, 2022
I love the project.
Read
April 30, 2023A very interesting read. Too new, too different from what I usually read … and so no rating.
August 9, 2023
I really love this book. I like the way Kimiko Hahn has taken the zuihitsu and shown us what can really be done with it. Many of her topics appeal to me on a personal level. I would recommend.
March 26, 2024
who cares about what i thought was my heart —
December 29, 2024
Thoughtful poetics with a strong sense of Japanese culture, parenthood, existential thinking, and 9/11 heartache. Interesting prose formatting.
September 14, 2018
Fragmented so as to reach greater depth than anything whole might. Intimate and curious and commanding.
June 15, 2022
kimiko hahn is my new mommy figure ;D
—there’s a lot of sharpened fear, vulnerability of the self, and unlearning in hahn’s writing that is surprising to see coming from a middle-aged grad school professor. this softness makes her seem refreshingly childlike beyond her larger identities as scholar, mother, divorcee, and wife - and i love and resonate with it as much as one can with someone decades older. she makes me feel okay with aging. and unbearably, unbearably scared for future’s grief. to be sure, amidst the growing pains still reign the tender moments with hahn and her current husband and children. i am so happy for her and filled with hope because she and him have been married for 18 years now :) in the end, her beloved zuihitsu form reveals so much of that untouched visceral subtlety in her mind. if only i could take one of her classes!
(also... dictee keeps coming up everywhere!! i think i need to read it in a class where there are discussions that help break it down 😭)
—there’s a lot of sharpened fear, vulnerability of the self, and unlearning in hahn’s writing that is surprising to see coming from a middle-aged grad school professor. this softness makes her seem refreshingly childlike beyond her larger identities as scholar, mother, divorcee, and wife - and i love and resonate with it as much as one can with someone decades older. she makes me feel okay with aging. and unbearably, unbearably scared for future’s grief. to be sure, amidst the growing pains still reign the tender moments with hahn and her current husband and children. i am so happy for her and filled with hope because she and him have been married for 18 years now :) in the end, her beloved zuihitsu form reveals so much of that untouched visceral subtlety in her mind. if only i could take one of her classes!
(also... dictee keeps coming up everywhere!! i think i need to read it in a class where there are discussions that help break it down 😭)
December 7, 2009
I read this because I felt like I owed it to myself and to Kimiko to try her again. And because last time I heard her read, in 2005, I believe it was drafts of these poems as she neared publication. This was, in many ways, even tougher than reading The Artist's Daughter when I was 14. It's as if you've opened a time capsule of the poet, and it's just a pile of notes, journal entries, emails, and you have to be the one to put them together and understand them. That makes it a very interesting and unique collection of poetry--not quite free verse and not quite prose poems--but also a frustrating one, because the journal-like quality makes you think there is a more coherent story. Still, there were beautiful lines and poignant lines and lines that made me think.
April 17, 2008
Tanka is the Japanese form of poetry that is thirty syllables long. These poems are not tanka (despite the poet's claims to the contrary). There's another form of Japanese poetry involving a short sentence of feelings, but this isn't that either.
What it is may be of some discussion. It's not quite poetry, not quite memoir, not prose; it's something new and different that transcends genre classification. It's a journal, of sorts, but in carefully constructed verse indicating her thought processes at the time.
What it is may be of some discussion. It's not quite poetry, not quite memoir, not prose; it's something new and different that transcends genre classification. It's a journal, of sorts, but in carefully constructed verse indicating her thought processes at the time.
December 1, 2008
I'm going to get that Essential Haiku because I don't think I can read any Kimiko Hahn without it. This was just as confessional as Sharon Olds, except I've come out not liking her as much as I liked Sharon Olds, which is silly. She is a fabulous writer but hasn't offered me much so far. I think there's something smug about writing down what you're wearing (and to have it be a velvet skirt???) and expecting someone somewhere to care. Shallow me.
August 24, 2009
Beautiful, angry, tender, brave, smart. Her poems are so intimate that, even though the external circumstances are often really different from mine, I always recognize something of myself in them--often something I couldn't name or articulate, even something I wasn't aware of before reading the poem. That's one of the best gifts poetry--any writing--can give: that feeling of the poem being written just for me.
June 4, 2012
Unconventional to our western eyes, Hahn uses two traditional Japanese forms: tanka and zuihitsu. Both appear as fragments, with the power and glory of that empty space you, the reader, are invited to fill. See my blog for more: http://www.bmorrison.com/blog/
Displaying 1 - 30 of 35 reviews