Chronicle of Drifting

Chronicle of Drifting enacts a restless quest for belonging, interweaving dreamlike imagery and Japanese lyricism

Yuki Tanaka’s stunning debut, Chronicle of Drifting, explores rootlessness, its beauty and perils. Tanaka’s restless imagination roams among places and personae--a village mermaid, a geisha in the Midwest, a flâneur in Tokyo--searching for a permanent self and a sense of community. In the feverish world of these poems, inspired by the Japanese tradition of tanka and haiku, as well as by timeless surrealism, one meets a light-lashed horse, an imaginary chauffeur, an out-of-business psychic, a girl who skewers a fish with a flower stalk. In poems ranging from lyric to prose, Tanaka creates a poignant dreamlike realm where the inner and outer worlds, the self and others, merge--like the train passenger who, looking out the window and seeing the sky through his reflection, feels ＂empty, a blue outline.＂

Yuki Tanaka was born and raised on a small island in Yamaguchi, Japan. His debut poetry collection Chronicle of Drifting will be published by Copper Canyon Press in 2025. He has also co-translated, with Mary Jo Bang, A Kiss for the Absolute: Selected Poems of Shuzo Takiguchi--forthcoming from Princeton University Press (The Lockert Poetry in Translation Series) in 2024. He lives in Tokyo and teaches at Hosei University.