Yasuhiro Yotsumoto was born in Osaka, Japan in 1959 and grew up mostly in Hiroshima. Although he was writing poetry in his late teens, it was only after he moved to Philadelphia in 1986 as a business expatriate and immersed himself in the English language environment that Yasuhiro started to fully engage himself with writing poetry in his native Japanese language. His first collection of poetry A Laughing Bug was published in 1991. He is the author of 11 poetry collections in total, winning him numerous awards in Japan. While his own poems has been translated into more than 20 languages, Yasuhiro himself translates works of numerous foreign poets, both such classic figures as Li Po, Dante, Rilke, and Emily Dickinson, and the contemporary poets into Japanese.
Yasuhiro is also active in the areas of story, novel, essay and literary criticism. Earlier this year, his first novel The Fake Poet and the collected essays To Dear Poets! were published. He is also active as an editor: Since 2006, Yasuhiro has been National Editor of Poetry International Web–Japan (http://japan.poetryinternational.org/), introducing contemporary Japanese poetry through English translations.
In Memory of My Father
One day he said, “I prefer rainy days.
I cannot put up with bright sunny skies any more,”
sounding a bit like Dracula.
It was about the same time when he secretly started to pee
sitting on the toilet seat,
the rustling paper to be overheard by us.
One time he stared at the lint on the sofa cover
like an old woman praying
to the fibers of a holy shroud.
Only his fingers were moving restlessly as
he was listening to water boiling in
the electric pot
with its inner bottom covered in calcium scale.
He wrote a letter addressed to the chairman
of the Crystal Formation Society, in which
he used the words, grace and cruelty
as synonyms.
During his catnap one afternoon he said with
a strange clarity,
“...even a child who has lived only for
three years
went through the twilight years.”
He fell in love one-sidedly with one of the (ordinary-looking)
utility poles while sleeping in a separate room from my mom.
He used to be so intimidated by moths
but did not fear them any more
and even dared to dance with them right there, under the bug light.
A man who declined mileage registration
in his prime yet continued to alter his handwriting
in his diary up until the day before his death.
And lastly and probably most importantly,
he could sing all the songs from
“Jesus Christ Superstar” by heart.