Frederick Pollack
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‘For Takamura Kotaro’: a poem by Frederick Pollack
For Takamura Kotaro When the Bombs fall, and you listento the Emperor’s speech(almost opaquely formal,about “bearing the unbearable”),you think again of Chieko –now seven years dead –and certain phrases(perhaps from her feminist, radical youth)with which, from the roof,she insulted your neighbors,or you when she threw pots and pans(still at home, before the asylum).And remember how…