Sawako Nakayasu is a transnational poet and translator who has lived in Japan, France, China, and the US. Her books include The Ants, Texture Notes, and the translation of The Collected Poems of Chika Sagawa, as well as unconventional translations such as Costume en Face, a handwritten notebook of Tatsumi Hijikata’s dance notations, and Mouth: Eats Color – Sagawa Chika Translations, Anti-translations, & Originals, a multilingual work of both original and translated poetry. She is co-editor, with Lisa Samuels, of A Transpacific Poetics (Litmus Press, 2017), a gathering of poetry and poetics engaging transpacific imaginaries. Nakayasu has also performed on Japanese television as a poetry judge, and in a re-enactment of Yvonne Rainer’s Grand Union Dreams (dir. Yelena Gluzman).
