Janani Ambikapathy Purchase

Jan 22, 2025 | poetryfoundation.org | Ryan Choi |Janani Ambikapathy Purchase |Janani Ambikapathy

Three Demons: A Study in Sanki Saitō’s Haiku marks the first English book of work by the Japanese haiku poet whose nom de plume, Sanki, means “three demons.” As translator Ryan Choi points out in his translator’s note, these translations do not adhere to the 5-7-5 rule of haiku. Indeed, the haikus are not discernible as individual poems in the book, and Choi has said of his English renderings that they are “novel arrangements” of the source poems.

Oct 9, 2024 | poetryfoundation.org | Shash Trevett |Janani Ambikapathy Purchase |Janani Ambikapathy

Shash Trevett’s The Naming of Names begins with a note to the reader: “This book is filled with names. They will be strange and unfamiliar to you. As you turn these pages you will be tempted to gloss over, skim, even ignore them. Please don’t.” Every name in the book belongs to a Tamil person killed by the Sri Lankan state.

Oct 2, 2024 | beta.poetryfoundation.org | Farnoosh Fathi |Janani Ambikapathy Purchase |Janani Ambikapathy

What is immediately striking about Farnoosh Fathi’s Granny Cloud is the electrifying syntax in poems like “Luxe Chariot w/ Bidet (Meals on Wheels)”:the quivering silicone balances of lyricism,transferred one word to the next, this weight agreed    upon the loverand the beloved both in me, agreeing for the world that   music is,that a child has punctuated my letter—that I bring the    harmed,deranged and foreign things close, and closer.

Sep 18, 2024 | poetryfoundation.org | Janani Ambikapathy Purchase |Janani Ambikapathy

Dunya Mikhail’s Tablets: Secrets of the Clay is inspired by proto-cuneiform, a system of proto-writing on clay tablets that emerged in Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq) circa 3500 BCE. The book consists of 10 Tablets (chapters), each with 24 poems composed of drawings with Arabic writing, and a corresponding English poem. The image in poem I of Tablets V has the quality of an X-ray, though nothing much is visible except black specks that look like birds against the evening sky.

Aug 20, 2024 | beta.poetryfoundation.org | Jonathan Chaves |Janani Ambikapathy |Matthew Fraleigh |Janani Ambikapathy Purchase

The Same Moon Shines on All features select poems by two important cultural figures of 19th century Japan, the husband and wife, Yanagawa Seigan (1789–1858) and Yanagawa Kōran (1804–1879), compiled, edited, and translated by Jonathan Chaves and Matthew Fraleigh.