Redefining the landscape of "here" and "there" in finely grained lyrics

Elsewhere (cloth)

Poems

Kyoko Uchida, with introduction by Robert A. Fink

In Elsewhere, Kyoko Uchida unravels the landscapes of childhood migrations and later passages across oceans and continents, seasons and languages—spoken or otherwise—mapping the geographies of longing, loss, grief, and conflict. These poems are preoccupied with itineraries and distance, while at the same time negotiating space at the intersection of shared fragilities and efforts to communicate. Imbued with an outsider’s need for precise definitions, they attempt to pare down to the essential core each place, each yearning and absence.

With Elsewhere we welcome one of the most exciting new voices in contemporary poetry. Kyoko Uchida writes with startling vividness and subtlety of dual legacies, of double identities, and the search for a home in a disorienting world. Best of all, she excels at celebrating the work and pain and sweet frictions and conciliations of love. —Robert Morgan, author of Gap Creek and Terroir

An intimately personal collection. From splendid lyrics about Hiroshima and a mother’s silent desires, to the capacious interiority of Uchida herself, Elsewhere proves that, however rich our various experience, we return to our ineludible humanity—in love, worry, and vulnerability. I know of no book that better shares the heart’s music. And at a time when many of us are exiled from the land of our birth—through war, desire, or commerce—Uchida acts as our spiritual compass. These poems are generous, worldly, and luminous, and oh so beautiful. —Kenneth A. McClane, W.E.B. Du Bois Professor of Literature, Cornell University

Kyoko Uchida’s poems in Elsewhere join beauty and intellect, with each section of the book thematically unified and coherent, an orchestration compelling me to participate, to approach again what it means to be me, to be human. –Robert A. Fink, from the foreword

Kyoko Uchida has published poetry, prose, and translations in The Georgia Review, The Black Warrior Review, Grand Street, Manoa, New Letters, The Northwest Review, Painted Pride Quarterly, Prairie Schooner, Runes, The Virginia Quarterly Review, and other literary journals. Born in Hiroshima, she spent her childhood moving back and forth between Japan, the United States, and Canada. She lives in Brooklyn and works for a nonprofit organization.

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