Selected Poems of Kyūkin

A monkey pays with a counterfeit coin, an owl sends a homesick servant back to work, and three sparrows compare the children who share their lives. Then the voice deepens: an ancient mirror awakens buried longing, a ginkgo stands like a warrior, and a kingfisher guards its secrets in a shrine of feathers.

Susukida Kyūkin’s own selection brings together 113 poems from six collections. The volume ranges from intimate songs and animal fables to sustained meditations on love, spiritual transformation, the endurance of art, and the restless call of the sea. Gardens, temples, rivers, and stars become both concrete places and scenes within the mind.

Its final sequence turns toward the street: a beggar child’s fiddle, a singer caught in a whirlwind, a vendor selling fur-seal remedies. Beauty and unease remain close companions throughout.