Wing-Beaten Air

Acclaimed Japanese poet Yorifumi Yaguchi has turned his writing attention to telling what he experienced as a child growing up on the island of Honshu in the late 1930s and '40s. When life became incomprehensible, Yaguchi put his experiences into poems. His audience grew beyond Japan—and included Robert Bly, Denise Levertov, and William Stafford, who became his friends. Recognized in Japan as a major poet and also as an outspoken advocate for peace, Yaguchi here uses his extraordinary voice to tell his life story in prose and poetry.