'Takako Arai (1966 —) was born into a silk-weaving family in Kiryū city, Gunma Prefecture, on the outskirts of Tokyo. She began publishing poems in the early 1990s, and since 1998 has run a poetry magazine, Mi’Te, which features poems, translations and poetry criticism. Her second poetry collection, Tamashii Dansu (Soul Dance) was published in 2007, and received the Oguma Hideo Poetry Prize. Her latest collection, Betto to Shokki (Beds and Looms), published in 2013, explores the lives of female textile workers, applying a unique language inspired by the local dialect of Kiryū.
Takako’s poems in English translation are anthologised in Four from Japan: Contemporary Poetry and Essays by Women (Belladonna Books 2006) and Poems of Hiromi Itō, Toshiko Hirata & Takako Arai (Vagabond Press 2016). Her poems have been translated into many languages, including Chinese, French, Italian, Serbian and Turkish, and recited at International Poetry Festivals in countries such as America, Argentina, Italy and Turkey.' (Source Cordite 82)
