Ihara Saikaku

Ihara Saikaku had a penchant for poetry, as well as a gift for writing plays and novels with a radical flair. He was known for taking risks in his works. In fact, he worked to free poetry from the conventional rigid forms and restricted themes, advocating that it be read in a more natural manner. And all of this in seventeenth-century Japan. He could compose thousands of stanzas in a single sitting. His stories were populated by merchants, rogues, misers, warriors, and amorous women. I first came to know Saikaku's work through a used copy of his story collection, Comrade Loves of the Samurai. These queer romances seem far ahead of their time, certainly more sexually-liberated than the popular literature of the West at that time, but to the Japanese of the Edo period, such love among the samurai was not only permissible, but admired.

Works by Ihara Saikaku:
Fiction: The Tragic Love of Two Enemies
Poetry: Cats

Fiction

Amie M. Evans Life's Little Hooks

Down the street, here she comes, chalking that line down the sidewalk.

Rob Beeston
A Flock of Rotations

I read it, an addict, on swervy trains south. That doubled the giddiness.

Rebekah Eppley
The Bend in the Arm of the River

It all began, trouble brewing, with Uncle Billy and his rifle...

Harry Thomas
North Florida Style

Something long expected always seems unexpected when at last it comes.

INTERVIEW

		Rob Beeston First-time novelist Rob Beeston speaks with the amazing Richard Canning, author of a trio of intensely sharp and sonorous interview collections with our most established fiction writers.
Plot as Ash by Richard Canning

SUBMIT

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POETRY

Maureen Seaton Passing into Baltimore, Leo, and Gargoyle Maureen Seaton and Neil de la Flor Pink Eye and Bi-Aquatic

Buried in the sand at the end of my street, under the east pole of the volleyball net, growing fins.

Trebor Healey
Evildoers, Just Do It, Shooting Star, and The MOON

How the heart speaks when it's really raw. It's like a hammer.

Reginald Harris
Cuerpo de Hombre, Index: The Sexual Life of Reginald M., and Dream of My Cousin's Wedding

Look in the back of the book, think to the back of your mind.

Darrah de jour
Where Art Thou? and No rebellion

Underneath there's a cool killer.

D. Antwan Stewart
Four-Part Epithalamion

On this day of rings and white ribbons...

Terry Jaensch
Karaoke (Yangtze), Defenses on Breaking Up with Diaghilev, and The Day and its Divisions

Things of my room, turning around, like flying over a thousand faraway lands.

Paul Ocampo
writer's block

Gray stone set before you with a diamond at its core.