Chronicle of Drifting - by Yuki Tanaka (Paperback)

About the Book

Book Synopsis

**2025 NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD Finalist**

Chronicle of Drifting enacts a restless quest for belonging, interweaving dreamlike imagery and Japanese lyricism

Yuki Tanaka's stunning debut, Chronicle of Drifting, explores rootlessness, its beauty and perils. Tanaka's restless imagination roams among places and personae--a village mermaid, a geisha in the Midwest, a flâneur in Tokyo--searching for a permanent self and a sense of community. In the feverish world of these poems, inspired by the Japanese tradition of tanka and haiku, as well as by timeless surrealism, one meets a light-lashed horse, an imaginary chauffeur, an out-of-business psychic, a girl who skewers a fish with a flower stalk. In poems ranging from lyric to prose, Tanaka creates a poignant dreamlike realm where the inner and outer worlds, the self and others, merge--like the train passenger who, looking out the window and seeing the sky through his reflection, feels "empty, a blue outline."

Review Quotes

Praise for Chronicle of Drifting

"Tanaka's language--villages of mermaids, a boy drinking sake from his dead grandfather's kneecap--is not just superficially surreal, but surreal per Breton's command, because it dwells so completely in the power of image. . . . There is, in the purest sense of this description, an aesthetic quality to Tanaka's work, a valorization of beauty by the most radical means. . . . It is crucial not to mistake aestheticism for being neutered, however, because a deep political vein also runs through Chronicle of Drifting."--Ed Simon, Poetry Foundation

"Creates a corridor between the living and dead . . . Chronicle of Drifting enacts a surrealist crossroads, with lexicons spanning the natural, the bodily, the alchemical, and the oracular. The myriad sources of perception belie a mind in flux, embodying a desire to reimagine the mortal veil as more capacious and mutable than it currently seems. In this way, the poems move beyond the ornamentation of songs to the hard work of channeling grief in motion. As Tanaka forges through the uncanny waters of imagination, he reckons with what it means to wander the earth while longing for a less contingent existence."--Tianyi, Los Angeles Review of Books

"Yuki Tanaka's invitation into his head is a mind-blowing adventure, like a seeing the world through Lewis Carroll's looking-glass."--London Grip

"Tanaka's singular view, somewhat detached yet not lacking in compassion, soberly reckoning while allowing for flights of optimism, is, again, the product of the angle of vision of the flaneur, the stranger in town, the person who has seen it all but decides not to linger on individual premises too long. . . . This discreet version of the 'I' as a drifting, neutral observer in the war zone that is life--not Tanaka's only attitude, but a prevalent one--offers a valuable refinement of the poetic speaker, less self-centered, at most a participant-observer. Of his many gifts in this sterling debut collection, Tanaka's discreet and subtle management of tone sits uppermost. In offering it consistently, he invites us, too, whether casual reader or professional poet, to commit to our own drifting, which just might, if carefully husbanded, lead to our own chronicle."--Johnny Payne, Merion West

"These poems offer a mesmerizing triangulation of imagery, intellect, and invention. . . . Brief excerpts don't allow for the slippery and imaginative modes in which some of his narratives morph from the straightforward to the strange, often leaping through sentence fragments. . . . If I've made this sound formulaic, forgive me, as it is anything but: read it."--Rebecca Morgan Frank, Lit Hub

"A born fabulist, Tanaka has the spirit of a foundling raised by Kipling . . . and Ovid, or Yakumo Koizumi, the Greek-born author responsible for Japan's best-known kaidan."--Erick Verran, Poetry Project

"To witness the power of the surreal to startle and delight, readers should open Yuki Tanaka's debut poetry collection Chronicle of Drifting, which demonstrates that Surrealism is very much alive . . . While Tanaka's roots can be traced to classic Surrealism, the worlds he creates are unlike any other."--John Bradley, Rain Taxi

"In the midst of the collection's landscape of loneliness and dislocation, 'Aubade' testifies to the acts of care and communion that are still possible--and the ways that silence and stillness can facilitate this connection. As Tanaka writes in 'Discourse on Vanishing, ' 'The earth stays still again. / This is not the end of the broken world.'"--Sarah Fleming, Tricycle

"The poems in Chronicle of Drifting are surreal, philosophical, and literary, filled with strange, unexpected metaphors that accentuate fragile beauty."--Miho Kinnas, World Literature Today

Praise for Yuki Tanaka

"In Yuki Tanaka's [chapbook] Séance in Daylight, the poems are streaming with light. Emotions usually obscured in the darkness of loneliness and longing are illuminated, made visible. These poems remind us, the world breaks again and again, but it does not end."--Natalie Diaz

"Séance in Daylight is about desire, transformation, and dreams; it is also about intricate, yet light-footed sessions with the dead. The ever-present undertow of the poet's sharp observations keeps these lush, yet lapidary lyrics from slipping into solipsism or sentimentality. These poems remind us that at times, life's very existence feels unbearably inexplicable, beautiful, perverse, moody, and touching. Yuki Tanaka connects these feelings with a spiritual intensity and a sweet wit."--Sandra Lim

"At once full of light and darkness, the poems in this short book cover a plethora of topics. . . . Tanaka's voice and the combination between light and dark gives the collection a sense of cohesion."--PANK Magazine

About the Author

Yuki Tanaka was born and raised on a small
island in Yamaguchi, Japan. His poems have appeared in The Nation, The
New Republic, The Paris Review, Poetry, and elsewhere. He has cotranslated,
with Mary Jo Bang, A Kiss for the Absolute: Selected Poems of Shuzo
Takiguchi, published by Princeton University Press. He lives in Tokyo
and teaches at Hosei University.