Ayane Kawata

A lovely book and a welcome introduction to the work of Japanese ex-pat poet Ayane Kawata. Time of Sky & Castles in the Air combines two works: the first, a small but explosively condensed set of poems reminiscent of Rene Char or Paul Celan, the second, Kawata's dream journal, whose entries create an atmosphere of...Kafka? de Chirico? Isolation tinged with surreality. I finished this with a sense of frustration I can't read Japanese and that more of her work hasn't been translated.