Doubled Flowering: From the Notebooks of Araki Yasusada

Poetry. Literary Criticism. Asian American Studies. The materials of the Japanese poet Araki Yasusada (1907-1972) were published in Grand Street, CONJUNCTIONS, Abiko Quarterly, FIRST INTENSITY, Stand and The American Poetry Review. Gradually, the rumor began circulating that Araki Yasusada did not exist and that the poems were a hoax perpetrated by the Japanese-American author Tosa Motokiyu or by his literary executor, the American poet Kent Johnson. The ‘scandal’ of these poems lies not in the problematics of authorship, identity, persona, race or history. Rather, these are wonderful works of writing that also invoke all of these other issues, never relying on them to prop up a text. This book makes the argument for anti-essentialism–Ron Silliman. This is essentially a criminal act–Arthur Vogelsang.