Poetry into the Beyond

The Center for the Art of Translation welcomes Japanese poet and performance artist Yoshimasu Gozo and poet Forrest Gander to San Francisco for a performance and discussion of Gozo’s work, including upcoming poetry collection Alice Iris Red Horse (New Directions). Edited by Gander, Alice Iris Red Horse gathers translations of Gozo’s major works that span his entire career. Also included are illuminating interviews and reproductions of Gozo’s artwork and performances.

Yoshimasu Gozo, born in Tokyo, has performed worldwide. His work has been described as “so unorthodox that it defies the print medium and can be delivered only as performance.” He has received many literary and cultural awards, including the Takami Jun Prize, the Rekitei Prize, the Purple Ribbon, and the 50th Mainichi Art Award for Poetry.

Forrest Gander is the author of numerous books of poetry, fiction, translation, and essays. He has won the Whiting Writers’ Award, a Howard Foundation Award, the Jessica Nobel Maxwell Memorial Prize, two Gertrude Stein Awards for innovative North American writing, and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Guggenheim Foundation, and United States Artists. His 2011 collection Core Samples from the World was an NBCC and Pulitzer Prize finalist for poetry. He has taught at Harvard and Brown.

Alice Iris Red Horse, edited by Forrest Gander with introduction and notes by Derek Gromadski, features translations from the Japanese by Sawako Nakayasu, Hiroaki Sato, Eric Selland, Jeffrey Angles, Richard Arno, Derek Gromadzki, Forrest Gander, Sayuri Okamoto, Auston Stewart, and Kyoko Yoshida.