Three Demons
$15.95
by Sanki Saitō
September 24, 2024
poetry | pb | 128 pgs.
5.5" x 8.5"
978-1-960385-27-7
“THREE DEMONS”: SANKI SERIES I EXTRACT
Machines
Trains and women
depart;
inauguration
of a
lunar eclipse.
Black mass
Fair weather
morning.
Boys
peer at
the distant
castle.
Left eye
Early noon—
under a cascade
of pine
cones, I purchase
a black
mourning band.
Translated from the Japanese by Ryan C. K. Choi
•
About the Author:
Sanki Saitō (1900-1962) was a Japanese poet and short story writer, most famous for his modern haiku, which he began writing in his thirties while practicing dentistry, and for which he was briefly imprisoned during the Second World War. He published four collections in his lifetime—Flags (1940), Night Peaches (1948), Today (1952), and Transformations (1962). “Sanki” is a nom de plume that means “Three Demons.”
About the Translator:
Ryan Choi is an editor at AGNI. His writings and translations have appeared in Harper’s Magazine, Los Angeles Review of Books, Conjunctions, The New Criterion, Raritan, Times Literary Supplement, and elsewhere. He is the translator of In Dreams: The Very Short Stories of Ryūnosuke Akutagawa. He lives in Honolulu, Hawaii, where he was born and raised.
