Japan's 'beat poet' Kazuko Shiraishi, pioneer of modern performance poetry, dies at 93

Discussed some of her poems in advanced English class a few years back, including the mentioned "I have never been anything like Pink".

Certainly was "The Rebel with a Cause". Long life full of challenges.

Some students knew of her and some disapproved of her.

But through her poems all got to be impressed by her.

The article mentions American poets Allen Ginsberg and Kenneth Rexroth as associates and goes on to mention jazz artist John Coltrane. 1950s Jazz artists like Coltrane and Miles Davis were very much a part of the Beat scene, as were prose writers Jack Kerouac and William S. Burroughs. All acknowledged  Shiraishi as a great poet. Beat and jazz were also influenced by artists like Salvador Dali and Jackson Kerouac. That's some pretty heavy list of people who were either influences of hers or people she influenced. She is probably the last of the great Beat Generation.

My adult life began with the Beat Generation, but I had never heard of Kazuko Shiraishi until today.

She was such an electric performer, with a voice and spirit that just thundered. I got to host her at Josai International University for a poetry reading in memorial to the March 11 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Tohoku, where she read a poem in the voice of the tsunami.

Tokyo Poetry Journal published her work in volume 5, on Japan and the Beats, and they have a poem of hers translated by Allen Ginsburg here: https://www.topojo.com/shiraishi-kazuko-little-planet-v5

Out of step with the straight workadaddy world Kazuko Shiraishi never missed a beat and she will be an inspiration for and remembered by other creative "nails that stick up" who form an essential and valuable underground subculture of humanity that enriches a society.