So We Have Been Given Time Or

By Sawako Nakayasu Description Reviews Nakayasu’s book-length poem uses its tumbling dramatic form to create a new inquiry into “character,” “time,” “place,” “direction,” and other elements. Lyrical language and personal, engaging voices take the reader on a dizzying and affecting journey through a “geography of risk.” This wholly original work brings poetry into regions hitherto explored only by the most experimental forms of music and plastic arts.Winner of the 2003 Verse Prize, selected by Ann Lauterbach What makes this book brilliant is that Nakayasu obviously has a very different idea of what a poem, or poetry, is. While this idea is perhaps more easily identifiable by what it is not—not formulaic, not precious, not belonging to a “school” or regional style—it most assuredly is inventive, quirky, daring, and intelligent. Nakayasu has a generous and novel approach to meaning. As this book spins, shifts, and turns, it never ceases meaning. In fact, Nakayasu means deliber