Sawako Nakayasu: Grief Textures

Sawako Nakayasu selects poems that confront griefs personal and national, told directly and obliquely. She introduces Timothy Liu documenting the atrocities of Japanese imperialism (“A Requiem for the Homeless Spirits”), Daniel Borzutzky’s translation of Raul Zurita witnessing to the brutal crimes of the Chilean dictatorship (“Song for His Disappeared Love”), and Keith Waldrop conjuring a grief-riddled dream landscape (“An Apparatus”). Nakayasu closes with her own “Ant in a silvery tide,” a poem linked to a time of personal grief.Find the full recordings of Liu, Borzutzky, and Waldrop reading for the Poetry Center on Voca:Timothy Liu (February 20, 2014)Daniel Borzutzky (January 10, 2019)Keith Waldrop (with Rosmarie Waldrop, March 5, 2011)You can also enjoy three recordings of Nakayasu reading for the Poetry Center in 2007, 2018, and 2023.

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Poetry Centered features curated selections from Voca, the University of Arizona Poetry Center’s online audiovisual archive of more than 1,000 recordings of poets reading their work during visits to the Center between 1963 and today. In each episode, a guest poet introduces three poems from Voca, sharing their insights about the remarkable performances recorded in our archive. Each episode concludes with the guest poet reading a poem of their own.