Ahadada Books is pleased to present Kittenhood by Catherine Daly along with Cathy Eisenhower, Elisa Gabbert, Danielle Pafunda, and Kathrine Varnes.

Kittenhood is the thirteenth release in the Ahadada Books Online Chapbook series.

Pussipo is an ethereal neighborhood of younger experimental female poets founded by Anne Boyer. Catherine Daly, Cathy Eisenhower, Elisa Gabbert, Danielle Pafunda, and Kathrine Varnes are pussipos. OuLiPo is the organization for potential literature. Some of the poems here were part of an OuLiPo-like rewriting game played by Pussipo members during the summer of 2006. Poems included here were based on an early version of this book by Catherine Daly. They may appear in revised forms elsewhere.

Set in Kitty's neighborhood, friends get together for a party. On the way to the party, players "Make a Wish," choose a "Favorite Quote," and enact other spaces.

The closest of friends learn new things about one another each time the game is played. Like Kitty says, You can never have too many friends. Featuring the international star, Hello Kitty. Players strengthen friendships by learning new things about one another. 2-4 players.

More information is available here. It is available for download here.

Hi all - just took the opportunity to post an interview by Patrizia Hayashi with Kikuko Otake. On a recent trip to California, she had the chance to speak with the author of Masako's Story. They spoke of her book and her plans for the future. Check out the interview at it original location here.

Patrizia Hayashi is a freelance writer and author. On a recent trip to California, she had the opportunity to speak with Kikuko Otake, author of Masako's Story. They spoke of her book and her plans for the future.

PH: Describe the journey that led you to this place.

KO: Originally, I wanted to write an autobiography in haiku and tanka. Without talking about the atomic bomb, though, it would not be an autobiography. I thought I couldn't describe it in haiku or tanka. They were too short. It was impossible. Overwhelming.

I didn't remember much I remember seeing a perfect skeleton and a burned person I thought was an Egyptian mummy. He turned out to be a naked soldier with grayish white burns all over his body.

In 1991, I knew if my mother were gone, I wouldn't know what happened. I needed to know for me what happened. Me and my family.

I spoke with my mother some and after, tucked my notes away. I myself had rejected it. So-so knowledge was fine. I didn't want to know more.

Finally, when I wanted to write about it, my mother's mind was gone. I thought about if I write what my mother told me. Prose seemed more interesting. Part I is a poem but not. Every line is where she took a breath. I don't enjoy reading a book packed with words and letters, which are hard on the eyes.

I self-published in Japan and gave it away. Friends said it should be in English. Most such stories only rely on Japanese. People of the world don't know.

I translated the entire book, chapters one through four. My son corrected it. I ended up eliminating chapter three. I don't want to be a political person and don't want to be an advocate. I wanted to show facts and describe what happened. I wanted to have each reader think about what they do.

PH: In your Letter to the Reader, you discuss the difficulty of translating your work from Japanese to English. Do you feel you captured the nuances you were looking for in these poems?

KO: The Japanese edition is very effective because it's in Hiroshima dialect. In English, we can't do it.

I gave a speech before Middlebury College students and spoke of not being able to get the feeling of my mother's speaking. What about using a Southern accent? But why? The dialect or accent would take away from the impact

The English is a version. An adaptation. Not a translation. It doesn't sound like the spoken language. The purpose and story, though, are the same.

PH: What kind of reaction have you received so far?

KO: Not much from American people. I gave the book to college and alumni friends. I'm expecting a review to come out with Rafu Shimpo, the Japanese-American newspaper, here in the US. Donald Ritchie posted a review in The Japan Times on August 5^th, 2007.

PH: Which poem best expresses the message you wish to send?

KO: In the Japanese version, the worst poem is the one I described on the day of the bomb. I couldn't describe it at all and convey the horror. Impossible.

PH: Which poem touches you the most personally?

KO: The last one in part I. We never never cry. Singing it, we started to cry. Beautiful.

The Hibaku-sha group encouraged us to publish and leave a record. Reading out only the one chapter, I think human beings don't die very easily.

PH: Have you found a sense of closure by publishing this work or has it furthered your desire to do more with respect to the bombing?

KO: I wasn't interested in what happened to others. I wanted to know what happened to me. I wasn't interested in publishing. I laid out the facts and it's up to you what you do with them.

Hiroshima city plans a fifty-state exhibition and I will visit some of them and talk about the book only. I'm not political. I don't want to make more of it. I want to educate people on what happens.

PH: What are your writing plans after this?

KO: Writing my autobiography in haiku and tanka for my own pleasure.

Available shortly in North American via Ahadada and Small Press Distribution, Masako's Story is now available from IMC Books (our Japanese distributor). Masako's Story: Surviving the Atomic Bombing of Hiroshima...

On August 6, 1945, when the world's first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, the Furuta family was living about one mile away from the hypocenter. Five-year-old Kikuko, her mother, Masako, and her two brothers barely escaped with their lives. However, their soldier father was not so fortunate. Masako never talked about her family's experiences on that day and the days following the bombing. Then one day, Masako started to talk about what happened — breaking a silence of nearly fifty years . . .

Kikuko (Kay) Otake was five years old when the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, August 6, 1945. In her book Masako's Story (forthcoming from Ahadada), she offers a survivor's perspective.

Professor Kikuko (Kay) Otake was born on February 22, 1940 in Osaka, Japan. She earned her B.A. from Tsuda College of Tokyo, Japan in 1962 in English Literature. In August of 1968, she came to the US and in September 1987 earned her M.A. in Education from California State University in Los Angeles.

Professor Otake is an award-winning poet who regularly publishes tanka and haiku.

Written by Kikuko (Furuta) Otake, now an assistant professor of Japanese in the United States, Masako's story is a bilingual collection of prose-poetry, based on the true story of her family's tragedy. The appendix presents the original Japanese poetry written to capture the story as her mother said it in Hiroshima dialect. Moreover, the English translation is written with an "Objectivist" lineation similar in its understated power to Charles Reznikoff's "Testimony":

After crossing the Aoi Bridge,
I walked diagonally across the grounds of the Gokoku Shrine
To take a short cut.
Oh. That ground was filled with hundreds of people with horrible burns
Scattered everywhere.
Many of them were dead.
But those that still lived,
Begged, "Mizu! Mizu o kudasai," in faint whispers.
Soon my way was blocked by their outstretched arms.
One of them even grabbed my ankle, though feebly,
To stop me from running past him.
His burnt skin sloughed off his fingers,
As I pulled from his grip.

(pg. 23).

Kikuko Otake's Masako's Story is a powerful addition to the literature of the Atomic Bomb, and yet more evidence that we should all work together to stop the Nuclear madness.

Coming soon from Ahadada Books — Masako's Story: Surviving the Atomic Bombing of Hiroshima

On August 6, 1945, when the world's first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, the Furuta family was living about one mile away from the hypocenter. Five-year-old Kikuko, her mother, Masako, and her two brothers barely escaped with their lives. However, their soldier father was not so fortunate. Masako never talked about her family's experiences on that day and the days following the bombing. Then one day, Masako started to talk about what happened — breaking a silence of nearly fifty years.

Kikuko (Kay) Otake was five years old when the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, August 6, 1945. In her book Masako's Story (forthcoming from Ahadada), she offers a survivor's perspective.

Professor Kikuko (Kay) Otake was born on February 22, 1940 in Osaka, Japan. She earned her B.A. from Tsuda College of Tokyo, Japan in 1962 in English Literature. In August of 1968, she came to the US and in September 1987 earned her M.A. in Education from California State University in Los Angeles.

Professor Otake is an award-winning poet who regularly publishes tanka and haiku.