Thursday 27 July, 6-9PM
Pat Martin Bates Gallery
1800 Store Street (wheelchair accessible)
Please join us for the book launch with accompanying installation of The Hiroshima Project by Artist, Yumie Kono and Poet, Ariel O’Sullivan.
Poetry after the Atomic Bomb, written nearly 80 years ago in Japan, is now available in English translation.
Days after the US dropped the atomic bomb over Hiroshima on August 6th, 1945, Hideko Kono found herself searching the scorched city for the bodies of her husband and her second born son. In one breath, she channeled her grief into 60 Tanka Poems and then hid them away in her desk at home. Eventually she published her first book “Michi,” which included her 60 Tanka Poems. She wanted to share her experience of the war with her other children while she was still alive.
Her daughter Yumie Kono, an artist, shared her mother’s urgency to bring her experience of the bombing to others. Because Kono wanted to share these poems with a larger audience, she and the poet Ariel O’Sullivan collaborated on the arduous and delicate process of translating the Tanka Poems into English. Kono’s eldest brother also added his memories to the book, which are included in an interview with his niece Iyko Day, Kono’s daughter.
The collection is now available in a single edition that contains both the original Japanese and English translation.
Book launch and reading of “Genbaku no Uta, Poetry after the Atomic Bomb. Collection of Tanka Poetry by Hideko Kono. Translated by Yumie Kono and Ariel O’Sullivan.
A reading of poetry in Japanese and English, presented within a documentation of “Hiroshima Project” archives will take place at the Victoria Arts Council’s Pat Martin Bates Gallery for one evening only: Thursday 27 July, from 6-9PM.