Chika Sagawa was a leader of the avant-garde movement in post-WWI Tokyo, a daring experimental poet who sought to free her work from the traditionally gender-bound traditions of Japanese poetry. Growing up in isolated rural Japan, Sagawa would move to Tokyo at seventeen, and begin publishing her work at eighteen. Almost immdiately recognized as a leading light of the (male-dominated) Japanese literary scene, Sagawa's work combines startling, unique imagery with Western influences. The result are short, sharp, surreal poems about human fragility in the face of beauty.