Wake Me With a Shout

"Former lawyer-defender of native North American and women's rights-Barbara's got major clitzpah. With forty-five years of life in Japan under her belt, she has distinguished herself in many areas: a 7th dan martial artist "with a slightly aggravating tendency to preen"; Aikido shihan; paragliding pilot; founder of groups such as the Engaged Pedagogy Association, Gender Awareness in Language Education; creator of journals like Tokyo Poetry Journal; cowriter of sexual harassment policies at universities in Japan; poet, translator, calligrapher, and retired professor; and student of the Okinawan 3-stringed instrument sanshin. To say that she is a one-person shaker and mover, of plural renaissances, is not an exaggeration. She is not one of those self-aggrandizing ones or career-poet types. She is uninterested in appearing hip. She is modest-but once she graces the stage, there is this figure so charismatic and undeniable. A member of the LGBTQ movement and a pioneer between that movement and literature in Japan, you might get the impression that Barbara would be somewhat pedantic / didactic, but remarkably, her body of poetry is highly accessible, engaging, and dare I write, often entertaining." - Taylor Mignon