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Paper short abstract:

This paper uses theories of space by Lefebvre, Soja and Maeda Ai as well as cognitive literary theories to analyze the poetic spaces of Saihate Tahi. It suggests that these can be read as “sites of resistance,” playing with normative spatial behavior and conventional ways of reading poetry.

Paper long abstract:

When a poem written on the ground suddenly appeared around Ōmiya station in spring 2020, it caused a sensation on Twitter and irritation among residents. Only a few months later, poet Saihate Tahi revealed that she was responsible for the poem, stating that it was a commissioned work for the 2020 Saitama Triennale entitled 'Shi no kasoku / shi no teishi'. However, due to the postponement of the Triennale, the installation became a phenomenon that occurred out of context. People encountered the poem unexpectedly and literally re-read the urban space surrounding them. It transformed the everyday space of a regular street into “an-other” (cf. Soja, 1996). 'Shi no kasoku / shi no teishi' is just one example of Saihate Tahi’s recent experiments with exhibiting poetry in space, publishing her poems in the physical space of an art gallery, a hotel room, a back alley, or in the virtual space of the internet. In order to read her “poetic spaces,” readers have to move their bodies along the lines of the poems, turn around, or change directions; they are asked to interact with the poems, sometimes destroying, sometimes reassembling their words.

Using Saihate Tahi’s poetic spaces as an example, this paper examines the intersection between poetry and space in contemporary Japanese poetry. It combines Henri Lefebvre’s “triad of space,” Edward Soja’s “thirdspace,” and Maeda Ai’s notion of “hare” to suggest that these poetic spaces can be read as sites of resistance that play with normative spatial practice and conventional ways of reading poetry. When studying the relationship between poetry and space, the focus is often set on a poem’s content and the representation of particular spaces in the text. However, this paper will address how we can productively apply theories of space and cognitive literary studies to analyse a poem’s form and its reader response, especially when it lies outside conventional publishing practices.

Another aim of this paper is to discuss the (un)translatability of Saihate Tahi’s poetic spaces, exploring the possibility of making her works accessible for an audience outside Japan without losing their aesthetic and sensual qualities.