Texture Notes
by Sawako Nakayasu
About Texture Notes
Is there a relationship between the population density of Tokyo and the pinkest part of a hamburger? Can one touch the inside of a noun to learn the difference between one bicycle and a field of bicycles? How close is yellow to need? How far are human fears from the fears of insects? Through a sequence of prose investigations, directions, theoretical performances, and character sketches, Sawako Nakayasu's Texture Notes presses itself against everything. Here is a book of liminal cartography, where textures are percolated by thought and propelled by feeling, where intellectual frottage meets sunlight, moonlight, the pain of seeing something beautiful and an entire town enamored by a simple rock. Once again, Nakayasu’s writing explodes with genre-bending fury and fine-tuned improvisation, leaving in its wake a largess of feeling for the things of the world. Order from Small Press Distribution here.
Excerpt from Texture Notes
Listen to "September 2nd" (audio hosted by PennSound)
About the Author
Sawako Nakayasu was born in Japan and has lived mostly in the US since the age of six. Her books include Hurry Home Honey (Burning Deck, May 2009), Nothing fictional but the accuracy or
arrangement (she, (Quale Press), and So we have been given time Or, (Verse Press). Books of translations include For the Fighting Spirit of the Walnut by Takashi Hiraide (New Directions, 2008) which won the 2009 Best Translated Book Award, as well as Four From Japan (Litmus Press, 2006) featuring four contemporary poets, and To the Vast Blooming Sky (Seeing Eye Books), a chapbook of poems by the Japanese modernist Chika Sagawa. She has received the NEA/JUSFC Fellowship for poetry, and grants from the NEA and PEN for translating Japanese poetry. Her own poetry has been translated into Japanese, Swedish, Arabic, Chinese, and Vietnamese. More information can be found here.