They don’t necessarily read as erasures, but as lyric poems— even managing rhyme and epistolary. Like Reddy’s Voyager, these carry powerful political implications, regarding Japan and Japanese/US relations before, during, and after WWII. Terrific language: “All of us were in a position to suffer a / temporary safety.” Despite they are derived from a dazzling array of incongruous texts, the manuscript manages to sustain a consistency of tone and form. Significantly, the technique— erasure— is well matched to a poetry of war, (re)constructing events through absences and aporias— the missing.
–Forrest Gander, judge’s citation, 2014 Drunken Boat Poetry Book Contest