Gaffield

Inside, the edo-jin stir ashes to a dogged glow. A pair of curs sniff the bridgehead and the rat that passed there, now wallowing unreachable in river silt. They turn their backsides to our Hiro as he slips out of sight. The old town droops into silence and the rains begin. (Full poem online at […]

I’ve just finished Nancy Gaffield’s superb Tokaido Road – 55 poems based on Hiroshige’s series of woodblock prints Fifty-three Stages of the Tokaido. I read it first without looking at the prints, to see how the poems work on their own (very well). Now I’m going to read it again, looking at the pictures. For […]