Kazuko Shiraishi

Bio:

Kazuko Shiraishi was a poet, performer, and translator born in Vancouver, Canada and raised in Japan. Influenced by abstract art, surrealism, American Beat poetry, and avant-garde jazz, Shiraishi’s poems were improvisatory, written with surreal imagery—at once playful and philosophical, sensitive and compassionate. Shiraishi wrote over twenty books of poetry, read at poetry festivals on every continent, and was awarded the Purple Ribbon Medal from the Emperor of Japan in 1998.