For the Fighting Spirit of the Walnut

by Takashi Hiraide

Translated into English by Sawako Nakayasu

For the Fighting Spirit of the Walnut is a collection of poems by Takashi Hiraide.

Divided into 111 electrifying sections, Takashi Hiraide’s For the Fighting Spirit of the Walnut is a mix of detailed observations, poetics, narrative, autobiography, rhetorical experiments, hyper-realistic images, and playful linguistic subversions – all scored with the precision of a mathematical-musical structure.

Walnut: Latin: Juglans – the acorn of Jupiter; Japanese: kurumi – walnut or wrapping; sen’i: fighting spirit or fiber – in this series of interconnected poems, the meanings of walnut multiply: a city, a will, memory, time, uterus, language.

Takashi Hiraide’s polyhedral box with many drawers was described by poet Taijirou Amazawa as a ‘multiple-veined drama in which all the parts illuminate and reverberate against each other.’

For the Fighting Spirit of the Walnut was first published in Japan in 1982 to intense critical acclaim, and it has taken over twenty years to find its equally unique translator; poet Sawako Nakayasu, who transmutes the beauty of this triple-helical symphony of the walnut into English.

Book details:

Title: For the Fighting Spirit of the Walnut

Author: Takashi Hiraide

Translator: Sawako Nakayasu

Language: English (bilingual)

ISBN: 978-0-8112-1748-4

Format: Paperback

Pages: 144

Dimensions: 16.76 x 1.02 x 16.51 cm

Publisher: New Directions

Publisher’s purchase link: https://www.ndbooks.com/book/for-the-fighting-spirit-of-the-walnut/