Dragonfly Eyes and Other Poems and Prose

A dragonfly’s eyes hold thousands of tiny watchers. Sunset spreads like fire through a world of corn, flowers, and reeds. Children carry a festival shrine, quarrel on a log bridge, and turn stolen fruit into a buzzing nightmare.

Kitahara Hakushū’s Dragonfly Eyes finds both wonder and unease in childhood. Its twenty-eight songs keep the rhythms of games, animal cries, and repeated refrains, while allowing loneliness, fear, and cruelty to enter the same bright world. The author’s preface explains why he wanted poetry to recover the child’s fresh sensations.

This collection also includes an early ode to the awakening capital, a richly colored botanical-garden walk, and Hakushū’s affectionate preface to Hagiwara Sakutarō’s Howling at the Moon. Three pieces on his own collected poetry trace artistic change and explain the arrangement of his books.