Yoko Danno

Trilogy & Hagoromo: a Celestial Robe Yoko Danno

"trilogy" consists of 3 sets of 13 poems: 1) WINTER JOURNEY 2) SONG OF DESTRUCTION 3) DANCE OF FIRE. Of the poems Lindley Williams Hubbell says in the introduction: "Her poetry is at once imagistic and abstract.... Yoko Danno gives us direct treatment of the subject herself.... Yoko Danno's images are autonomous. They are like Marianne Moor's real toads in imaginary gardens." "Hagoromo: A Celestial Robe" is a narrative poem "based on the same myth as the Noh play of the celestial maiden who has her robe of feathers stolen-though in the case of the version Miss Danno uses, the celestial maiden stays on earth for many years as the wife of Ikatomi before returning to the heavens. What impresses me most about this poem is principally Miss Danno's imaginative penetration of the mind of the woman - we seen to touch the very quick of the female sensibility as the seasonal labors of a small Japanese village are evoked through the eyes of a being who only vaguely remembers her life in the heavens and is unable to explain the fragmentary memories that suddenly occur to her. The poem would be just as remarkable if it had been written by someone whose native tongue was English" - Timothy Harris (Asahi evening News)