Lost and Found: Children’s Poet Kaneko Misuzu

Kaneko Misuzu: Finding God in a Little Bee

Yazaki Setsuo 

April 8, 2021

Kaneko Misuzu’s flights of imagination took her everywhere: from small things invisible to the human eye to the open skies and the vast cosmos beyond. At the same time, she was able to describe human emotions in language that was memorable and easy to understand, based on her keen observations of everyday life. An exploration of the humility and generosity of spirit that make Misuzu and her work so appealing.

Constantine Kavafy

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Review

Alexandrian Sphinx by Peter Jeffreys and Gregory Jusdanis review – the mysterious life of Constantine Cavafy

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The enigmatic queer poet admired by EM Forster and Jackie Onassis takes centre stage in this unconventional biography

Michael Nott

11 August 2025

 

The second floor of 10 Rue Lepsius, tucked away in the old Greek quarter of Alexandria above a brothel, was, for three decades, the literary focal point of the city. Entering the apartment, out of the Mediterranean sun, visitors would need a minute to adjust to the dimness, gradually perceiving faded curtains and heavy furniture, every surface covered with antiques and whimsical objects. There was no electricity, only candlelight. The host, proffering morsels of bread and cheese from the shadows, was an older man with “enigmatic eyes” beneath round spectacles – the poet Constantine Cavafy.

Lost and Found: Children’s Poet Kaneko Misuzu

Kaneko Misuzu: Rediscovering the Life and Work of Japan’s Poet for Children

Yazaki Setsuo 

March 10, 2021

Yazaki Setsuo remembers the fateful encounter he had with the writing of children’s poet Kaneko Misuzu and the long search that helped to bring her work back into the light after it had been forgotten for half a century.

A Fateful Encounter

The beginnings of serious Japanese writing for children date back to the early decades of the twentieth century. The fashion for writing dōyō, poetry and nursery rhymes that could be enjoyed by children and adults alike, is often dated to the publication of Akai tori (Red Bird), a children’s magazine, in July 1918. One young woman in particular shot across the scene at the height of the movement, producing numerous verses that earned her the praise of the poet Saijō Yaso as “the brightest star among all the young writers of poetry for children.” That woman was Kaneko Misuzu.

Navel Moon by Raúl Gómez Jattin

 

Navel Moon

By Raúl Gómez Jattin

Raúl Gómez Jattin / Ombligo de luna

I sketch your outline from the lighthouse down to the city walls

Your iron eyes are glow hallucinated

Sea skips over stones and my soul’s got it wrong

Sun sinks into water and water is pure fire

You’re almost like a dream   Almost a stone in time’s swaying

A tender archetype solid in these dim days

your way of soothing my tears

Letting loose your body against mine   Mad

like a foal in prairie fire

Spilling your words on my knowledge 

like a poison to heal absence

Recalling things used and forgotten

with a bright wondrous flight

It’s getting late my love   Sea brings storms

A pale moon recalls your naval

And a few clouds light and slow like your hands

drink thirstily   Like when I die up against your mouth

Raúl Gómez Jattin / A probable Constantine Cavafy at 19

 

A PROBABLE CONSTANTINE CAVAFY AT 19

by Raúl Gómez Jattin

Tonight he will attend three dangerous ceremonies
Love between men
Smoking marijuana
and writing poems

Tomorrow he will get up past noon
His lips will be parched
His eyes red
and another sheet of enemy paper

His lips will hurt from so many kisses
His eyes will smart like burning cigarette butts
And neither will that poem express his crying