Girls in the supply chain (PoemTalk #174)

Sawako Nakayasu, 'Some Girls Walk into the Country Where They Are From'

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Al Filreis brought together Bethany Swann, Henry Steinberg, and Caroline Bergvall (who was then completing her residence as a Kelly Writers House Fellow) to talk about four poems Caroline and Al had selected from Sawako Nakayasu’s book Some Girls Walk into the Country They Are From (published in 2020 by Wave Books). The four poems: “Girl A’s Peanuts and Girl D’s Mouthful,” “Gun,” “Girl in a Field of Flowers,” and “Ten Girls in a Bag of Potato Chips.” This last poem — “Ten Girls” — is also presented in the book in a French translation by Geneve Chao and a Japanese translation by Miwako Ozawa. Our recordings were made by Sawako Nakayasu just for PoemTalk, for which we are grateful, and we are also pleased to have recordings of French and Japanese translations by Chao and Ozawa.

Here are texts and audio of the poems:

“Girl A’s Peanuts and Girl D’s Mouthful” (0:58): MP3; PDF
“Girl in a Field of Flowers” (1:24): MP3; PDF
“Gun” (1:15): MP3; PDF
“Ten Girls in a Bag of Potato Chips” (1:08): MP3; PDF