“from Salaryman (To Arrange Oneself)” by Michael Mejia

Michael Mejia

from SALARYMAN

Adapted Haiga

eMejiaUmami

To arrange oneself, like the iris,
upright but approaching repose,
half-closed, prepared to emerge.

from Rattle #47, Spring 2015
Tribute to Japanese Forms

[download audio]

__________

Michael Mejia: “Salaryman is a sequence of brief prose poems attached to candid photos of Japanese salarymen and -women I took during a recent trip to Tokyo, where I was researching a work of fiction. After a few days of watching these ubiquitous figures of contemporary Japanese business culture heading resolutely toward some destination or other at all hours, I began to envision a sequence of 36 views, echoing those of ukiyo-e artists Hokusai and Hiroshige, their images of Mount Fuji, bridges, and famous places in Edo. Though lineated, I conceived, and still think of the texts as prose. I didn’t intend these pieces to hold to the ‘rules’ of haiku. Rather, they appropriate the form’s concision and often its dicta concerning seasonal references.”

Rattle Logo