Really so happy that two poems by Yoshihiko Hogyoku have been published in English on 3am magazine. They were translated by Miya Hogyoku, Yoshi himself, and myself, over a lovely afternoon in Tokyo earlier this year. Naturally I am not really the translator, not being a Japanese speaker, but rather very honoured to be asked by Yoshi and Miya, who I admire so so much, to lend a few phrasings where I could.

Yoshi is a brilliant poet, and these poems speak to that https://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/smart-city-straw-house/

Yoshihiko Hogyoku – Born in Fukushima Prefecture in 1976, surrounded by nature and the philosophy of buddhism, since his family house was a temple, he began writing poetry at the age of 17, deeply influenced by the poet Ryuichi Tamura. In 2011 he was forced to evacuate due to the Great East Japan Earthquake and the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant accident, since the area he lived was designated as an evacuation area from the radiation contamination from the accident. In 2017 he was able to return to his home land. During this period he published his first poetry collection “Picnic”(2015). After this experience he found a link between cognitive science, martial arts and poetry, which were all his passion, and he uses these structures in his writing. In 2022 he became a Buddhist monk and is pursuing his writing also with a perspective of Buddhist philosophy.