Discussion Group: Space and the Experimental Work of Saihate Tahi

Among the new generation of Japanese women writers, poet and writer Saihate Tahi's productivity seems to be unusually high. She is constantly publishing new collections of poetry, novels, short stories and essays, and is also actively publishing new work on social media. Recently, she seems to be experimenting with non-traditional ways of publishing her work, challenging our usual notions of what can be considered 'literature' or 'poetry'. In this session of the OCCT Discussion Group, Sarah Puetzer introduced and analysed Tahi's more experimental work through the lens of 'space', reaching from her video game poetry series shiku hakku ('Poetry Hacks') to her poetry installation Shi no kasoku / Shi no teishi ('The Acceleration of Poetry / The Suspension of Poetry') as well as her photographic short story Kimi wa POP ('You are POP'). She considered how digital or physical space and poetry intertwine in her works and discussed in what ways these 'poetic spaces' can be translated and thus experienced by an audience outside Japan.

Sarah Puetzer is a DPhil student at the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Oxford. She specialises in contemporary Japanese literature and poetry, with a focus on 'poetic spaces' in the works of Saihate Tahi and Fuzuki Yumi among others. She studied in Oxford, Berlin and Japan and just recently graduated from the IUC 10-month programme of intensive academic and professional Japanese training in Yokohama, administered by Stanford University. She is also co-host of the German cultural podcast and blog foejetong, discussing (pop) cultural phenomena from a feminist perspective.