Join professor, translator and poet, Dr. Jeffrey Angles (Western Michigan University), and poets Arai Takako (新井高子), Ohsaki Sayaka (大崎清夏), Shiraishi Kazuko (白石かずこ), Takano Mutsuo (高野ムツオ), Takahashi Mutsuo (高橋睦郎), Tanaka Yōsuke (田中庸介), Tanikawa Shuntarō (谷川俊太郎), Hirata Toshiko (平田俊子), Tian Yuan (田原), Mizuta Noriko (水田宗子) for an afternoon of reflection and remembrance on the Tōhoku disasters of March 11, 2011. Five years after the events and aftermath horrified people around the world and provoked critical reevaluations both of disaster preparedness and the safety of nuclear energy facilities, we take time to memorialize and to motivate ongoing discussion on these important issues through the language of poetry.

The event also launches a new volume of Japanese poetry collected and translated by Jeffrey Angles, These Things Here and Now: Poetic Responses to the March 11, 2011 Disasters. The volume features poems by Wagō Ryōichi, Hirata Toshiko, Takahashi Mutsuo, Itō Hiromi, Arai Takako, Sasaki Mikirō, Yoshimasu Gōzō, Tanaka Yōsuke, Suga Keijirō, Tian Yuan, Jeffrey Angles, Ohsaki Sayaka, and Tanikawa Shuntarō, as well as an extensive introduction by Dr. Angles.