Sagawa Chika

Sagawa Chika - Sagawa Chika (real name Aiko Kawasaki), is arguably Japan’s first female Modernist poet, Sagawa was a member of the lively community surrounding Kitasono Katue and was highly esteemed by her contemporaries. Stomach cancer took her life at the age of 25, at which point her poems were collected and edited by Ito Sei and published (Sagawa Chika Shishuu (Collected Poems of Sagawa Chika), Shourinsha, 1936). Later a more complete collected works, including her prose, in memoriam writings from poets, and a complete bibliography, was published as Sagawa Chika Zenshishuu (Collected Works of Sagawa Chika) by Shinkaisha in 1983. In 2010, her Collected Poems was republished by Shinkaisha, who also in 2011 published a new book collecting Sagawa’s translations from English-language poetry, including poems by Charles Reznikoff, James Joyce, and Mina Loy