Yoshinori Henguchi’s explosive poetry and gritty photography build on the surrealism of Haruki Murakami and his contemporaries to create a new aesthetic for a young generation of Japanese artists. Henguchi explores what he calls man’s foolish will to define himself on a canvas of infinities and nothingness.

This collection is especially designed for book lovers, collectors, and readers who revel in the act of reading. It includes Henguchi’s essay-poem Nihongo in both English and Japanese, more than sixty pages of color photography, and seventy beautifully designed poems. The overall effect of the book is to plunge the reader into an underground subculture somewhere in the backstreets of Osaka. The mundane trappings of life in Japan-TV screens, kitchen cutlery, household tools, plastic umbrellas, women’s shoulder pads-are rendered absurd and surreal in both Henguchi’s poetry and photography.

Yoshinori Henguchi is a photographer, artist, musician, and poet from Osaka, Japan. He often reads his poetry at live houses in Japan while accompanied by the grinding guitar rhythms of musical group ShinaiKankei (Inner City Relations). He publishes his poems in dojinshi journals sold at underground bookstores in Japan. In 2011 he read his poetry at the Dusseldorf Art Expo and took part in the 50 Eyes: Save Japan Photo Cards Project sponsored by the Tokyo Institute of Photography and CMS Corp. In 2006 he won Canon’s New Cosmos of Photography Excellence Award. This is his first book in English.

David Michael Ramirez II, the translator, has a PhD in Japan studies from Osaka University of Foreign Studies.

Heather Kirkorowicz has a master’s degree in philosophy from Stanford University.