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Join acclaimed poet Kimiko Hahn for a seminar and workshop on zuihitsu, the "quintessential Japanese writing" exemplified by The Pillow Book, the eleventh-century collection by Sei Shōnagon, a writer and member of the court of Empress Teishi. Zuihitsu is a genre for which there is no Western equivalent. Neither poetry nor prose, it is a generous container for fragmentary observations, a mode that some might categorize as prose poem or lyric essay. Hahn likens it “to a fungus—which is neither animal nor plant. It is a species unto its own.” Hahn will trace the lineage of zuihitsu, sharing examples from The Pillow Book and contemporary texts, and offer in-class writing prompts to spur participants to create their own zuihitsu.
Kimiko Hahn is the author of ten collections of poetry, most recently Foreign Bodies. She frequently draws on classic Japanese literary forms and is largely responsible for introducing zuihitsu to contemporary American poetry. The recipient of numerous awards, Hahn is a distinguished professor in the MFA program of Creative Writing and Literary Translation at Queens College, the City University of New York.
