Skinship

Synopsis

Skinship (スキンシップ) is Alexandra Corrin-Tachibana’s thrilling second collection and is the sequel to Salt bestseller, Sing me down from the dark (2022), featuring the same feisty protagonist, dark humour, and moments that will make you cry. ‘Skinship’ derives from the Japanese ‘loan word’ fusing ‘skin’ and ‘kinship’. The word can refer to intimate situations, such as bathing naked with friends or lovers in Japanese hot springs, and this bold and sensuous collection does not hold back.

Embedded in the word skinship is the word ‘kin’ and the poet explores motherhood, relationships between women, and relationships with partners (including controlling partners, narcissistic abuse and cross-cultural relationships). However, as always in Corrin-Tachibana’s writing, there is a balance of light and dark. There are many hilarious moments, such as in her imaginative zuihitsu titled ‘Madam Gout’ which provide a lovely contrast with darker pieces and more tender moments when writing about her son.

The collection is set against the Japanese cultural landscape and is strongly influenced by Japanese women writers including Sei Shōnagon, Yoko Ono, Machiko Tawara and Kimiko Hahn. Threaded through the collection is a witty and surreal sequence after Yoko Ono, including Artemesia prize shortlisted poem, ‘How to Enjoy Kyoto’.

This compelling and formally innovative narrative showcases beautiful Japanese poetical forms, such as her Winchester-prize shortlisted zuihitsu, ‘Skinship’, as well as haiku and tanka, which Corrin-Tachibana completely makes her own. Her collection is rooted in her lived experience of Japan and her love of Japanese literature, and the poems also explore her reconnection with the country when she returned after a 15 year hiatus. The use of Japanese language and script in some poems, as well as the collage-like layout of her zuihitsu, make ‘Skinship’ visually appealing, as well as a compelling read.

Praise for this Book

‘Alexandra Corrin-Tachibana’s second collection more than fulfils the promise of her first. Raw, honest, but always richly layered and well-crafted, Corrin-Tachibana’s skilful and innovative use of Japanese forms adds a further dimension to these narratives of loss, alienation, and the complexity of cross-cultural relationships. A wholly original and beguiling body of work.’ —Sue Burge

Praise for Previous Work

‘(On Sing Me Down from the Dark) Alexandra Corrin-Tachibana's poetry explores the nature of Japanese culture through sensual, well crafted, multilingual poems. Her beguiling poetry is thoroughly lived and utterly contemporary.’ —David Caddy, Tears in the Fence

‘(On Sing Me Down from the Dark) ‘Kotoshi mo Yoroshiku’, which I came across judging an anonymous poetry competition, is a formally innovative and exciting poem, which still maintains a sense of heart and intimacy.’ —Andrew McMillan

‘(On Sing Me Down from the Dark) East and the West clash and merge in Alexandra Corrin-Tachibana’s debut collection. Japanese and European cultures criss-cross and interweave in family relationships, love, sex and food. Identity is in flux in a reality that is often blurred and uncertain. Rituals rule but are often ambiguous and confusing. The protagonist retraces ten years of her life in Japan, her marriage and the birth of her son. The memories are experienced at the threshold of two languages, moving from English to Japanese with the aid of translations. It is a cultural and physical movement from one place to the other that conveys a sense of displacement.’ —Carla Scarano D’Antonio, The High Window

‘(On Sing Me Down from the Dark) Alexandra Corrin-Tachibana’s debut collection Sing Me Down from the Dark recounts her personal story over a period of time that included two international marriages. The poetic style throughout the book’s six untitled sections is strongly confessional, a style that is blended successfully with strong narrative threads and plenty of formal diversity, including innovative prose poetry, a ghazal (‘Ghazal for my husband, on International Women’s Day’), and a pantoum (‘ダーリンは外国人 “My Darling is a Foreigner”’).’ —Tim Murphy, The Friday Poem

‘(On Sing Me Down from the Dark) Family life in Japan, the unravelling of two marriages, being an outsider: Alexandra Corrin-Tachibana draws on her own life and (spoiler alert!) a new relationship as inspiration for this collection. Energetic, richly detailed and varied in form, they make an absorbing debut. Holding the poems together is the theme of ‘home’: what and where it might be.’ —D. A. Prince, Orbis

‘(On Sing Me Down from the Dark) One key point is Corrin-Tachibana’s acute awareness of the poem as artistic artefact rather than as an object that exists purely at the service of the poet’s own self-expression and sense of self-worth. This quality lifts Sing Me Down From the Dark out from the melee of contemporary poetry. It’s written with a reader in mind – something which might be assumed, but which is often relegated by numerous contemporary poets to an afterthought.’ —Matthew Stewart, Wild Court