The Collected Poems of Chika Sagawa

The PEN Award-winning collected works of Japan's first female Modernist poet and "one of the most prominent avant-garde poets in early twentieth-century Japan" (The New Yorker)

Chika Sagawa was a leader of the avant-garde movement in post-WWI Tokyo, a daring experimental poet who sought to free her work from the traditionally gender-bound traditions of Japanese poetry. Growing up in isolated rural Japan, Sagawa would move to Tokyo at seventeen, and begin publishing her work at eighteen. Almost immdiately recognized as a leading light of the (male-dominated) Japanese literary scene, Sagawa's work combines startling, unique imagery with Western influences. The result are short, sharp, surreal poems about human fragility in the face of beauty.

Chika Sagawa (1911-1936) is Japan’s first female Modernist poet. Inspired by European and American modernism, she moved to Tokyo--a dynamic and increasingly cosmopolitan city--at the age of 17. Immersing herself in the burgeoning avant garde literary scene, she began publishing poetry at 19, as well as translating James Joyce for a Japanese audience. Despite the male-dominated poetry scene, Sagawa’s talent was widely recognized. Diagnosed with stomach cancer in 1935, Sagawa died in January of 1936. She was 25.


Sawako Nakayasu was born in Japan and raised in the US, and has also lived in France and China along the way. Her most recent books are The Ants (Les Figues Press, 2014), and Texture Notes (Letter Machine, 2010), and recent translations include The Collected Poems of Sagawa Chika (Canarium Books, 2015), and Tatsumi Hijikata’s Costume en Face (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2015). Her translation of Takashi Hiraide’s For the Fighting Spirit of the Walnut (New Directions, 2008) received the 2009 Best Translated Book Award from Three Percent. She has received fellowships from the NEA and PEN, and her own work has been translated into Japanese, Norwegian, Swedish, Arabic, Chinese, and Vietnamese. Sawako Nakayasu currently teaches at Brown University in the Department of Literary Arts.