Soul Dance is an anthology that pursues the living form of words – an anthology that uses the voice as the bones of poetry, rhythm as its joints, and meaning and notation as its flesh and skin.

The vacant lot is the place of poetry. I was born and raised in Kiryū City in Gunma Prefecture, a town well known in Japan for the production of textiles. For decades, however, Kiryū has been suffering from a chronic case of hard economic times. A lack of business and continuing economic trouble are forcing the factories that once did so much weaving and spinning to disappear, thus leaving nothing for the future. When I stood in the remains of the old factories that had been sold on the auction block, I realized that if I were to stage my own, individual act of resistance to this empty dead-end of a hometown, it would be by making the spirit of language dance.

Later, I had the chance to travel to Belgrade and New York. There, once again, I encountered vacant lots, but those lots were different from those I had encountered at home—they were the empty spots left after explosions destroyed the enormous buildings that had once stood there. After the buildings were demolished, the rubble was cleaned up in almost no time at all, leaving conspicuously empty plots of land. These empty lots had been stripped so bare that not even a shadow remained. Still, I could not help but see them are profoundly poetic places that send us an earnest message about this moment we call “the present.”

I am tremendously happy about the publication of this collection of English translations, and it would be a great pleasure to me if you, my readers, are able to enjoy the dance of language in the little book you now hold in your hands.