Please welcome poet and Michener graduate Yuki Tanaka to First Light Books in celebration of his debut collection, CHRONICLE OF DRIFTING.

The event will begin with an author reception from 6:30–7 p.m., followed by a reading and conversation.

Tickets include a copy of the book and a reserved seat. Unreserved seats are available on a first come, first served basis. Free RSVPs are also encouraged.

About the book

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 flaneur 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."

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 co-translated, 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.

He will be joined in conversation by Olga Vilkotskaya, a fellow poet and Michener graduate.