Monday 1 June 2015

salad anniversary by Machi Tawara : review

*This book was given to me for free by netgalley in return for an honest review, however this doesn't effect my opinion*
Salad Anniversary by Machi Tawara
Published by: Pushkin Press
Publication date: June 9th 2015
Genres: Contemporary Japanese Poetry

Machi Tawara's first book of poems, The Anniversary of the Saladcombines the classical 'tanka' form with the subject of a modern love affair. It became a sensation, selling over 2 million copies - and the 'salad phenomenon' in Japanese culture was comparable to the 'bananamania' that followed publication of the first novel by Tawara's contemporary Banana Yoshimoto. Contains 15 poems:
'August Morning'
'Baseball Game'
'Morning Necktie'
'I Am the Wind'
'Summertime Ship'
'Wake-up Call'
'Hashimoto High School'
'Pretending to Wait for Someone'
'Salad Anniversary'
'Twilight Alley'
'My Bisymmetrical Self'
'So, Good Luck'
'Jazz Concert'
'Backstreet Cat'
'Always American'
 

Thoughts

I am giving this book 2/5 stars. I, by no means hated this book. Machi writes beautiful poetry that is so unique and different. The only problem is that all her poems are about love. Now I don't have anything against love, I've just never been in love. This made her poems really hard to connect with and I personally think that the main point of poetry is to connect with people. Half the time I had no idea what she was talking about. It was all just going straight over my head. 

This book is a great poetry book. I think in a couple of years time I will pick it up again and really fall in love with it but for now I'm not the target audience. To enjoy this book you have to have been in love at least once. This just wasn't the book for me.


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