Cat Town – Sakutaro Hagiwara
Cat Town by Sakutaro Hagiwara, translated by Hiroaki Sato / ISBN 9781590177754 / 180-page paperback from NYRB Poets
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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 of Howling, this volume includes all of Blue Cat, Hagiwara’s second major collection, together with Cat 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.
