Karen McAlister Shimoda, Confession
Confession is a shredded re-composition of a hand-copied version of Confession by Minoru Yoshioka, from the book Lilac Garden: Poems of
Minoru Yoshioka, translated from the Japanese by Hiroaki Sato. Yoshioka,
born in 1919 … is often held up as a ‘representative’ poet who mirrors
the clutter and nervous confusion said to be so typical of the postwar
Japanese psyche. (J. Thomas Rimer, 1975.)In Yoshioka’s words, “Poetry is
planned to be something visible, something you can touch, that has
weight, that occupies space—that has actuality.” (“What Is the Way That I
Write Poetry?—” “watashi no sakushiho” from Yoshioka Minoru shishū, No.
14 in the series Gendaishi bunko published by Shichosha, Tokyo, p.
101.) + +
