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Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the ´óÏó´«Ã½'s poetry archive and selects Shuntaro Tanikawa - A Poet's Japan featuring a rare encounter with Japan's greatest living poet.

And Daljit reads another poem from his Poetry Extra Book of the Month: Collected Poems by Wendy Cope.

Shuntaro Tanikawa is Japan’s most widely read and acclaimed poet and has been called one of the world’s ‘active poetic volcanoes’.

Recorded at the age of 88, he continued to be at the cutting edge of modern poetry in Japan, where he remained ever since his first collection, Two Billion Light-Years of Solitude, was published in 1952.

In the book's prefatory poem, Tanikawa's mentor, Tatsuji Miyoshi, introduced him as a young man who 'has come from a distant land, unexpected … bearing the weight of being alone'. Today, he compares his age to tree rings: ‘No matter how old I grow, the younger me still exists in the centre ring.'

Recorded in 2020, Tanikawa invites us into his world, and talks about his life and work in the company of his friend and translator since 1967, William Elliott, an American poet who has lived in Japan for more than 40 years, and his more recent translators Nishihara Katsumasa and Takako Lento.

Along the way, we peer into the soul of modern Japan and reflect on nearly 90 years of its history.

Readings from Shuntaro Tanikawa: New Selected Poems and The Art of Being Alone.

Featuring music by Kensaku Tanikawa, Toru Takemitsu and Ryuichi Sakamoto, with lyrics by Shuntaro Tanikawa.

Shuntaro Tanikawa died aged 92 on 13th November 2024.

Producer: Eve Streeter

A Greenpoint production for ´óÏó´«Ã½ Radio 4, first broadcast in 2020.

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