"We of Zipangu" is a selection of the work of Takahashi Mutsuo, one of Japan's leading poets. Like most contemporary Japanese poets, Takahashi writes in free verse style as well as the classic forms of the haiku and the tanka, often dedicating his poems to western writers he admires, among them Jorge Luis Borges, Paul Bowles, Ezra Pound, Michael Longley and Ciaran Carson. All these influences contribute to the richness and variety of Takahashi's own uniquely passionate and mystical voice. The artistic violences of movements like Dada and Cobra and of certain extravagantly cruel and grotesque masters of traditional ukiyoe prints form an intimate part of Takahashi's vision - he produces what Theophile Gautier in his essay on Grotesques calls "literary deformities" and other "poetic deviations". With subject matter that is often deeply personal and homo-erotic, darkly mysterious and sometimes grotesque (one is always aware of the shadows that lie beyond one's field of vision), he speaks with a voice that is passionate, firm, mystical and unforgettable in these powerful translations.