One of Japan’s leading poets, Kazuko Shiraishi was born in Vancouver, Canada in 1931. She was taken to Japan by her family just before war broke out. Young, and independent-minded, Shiraishi began her poetic career in her early teens among the turmoil and devastation of post-war Japan. Recognised by the leading poets of the time, she insisted on her artistic independence, and struck out on her own to develop a unique voice and style. Influenced by abstract art, experimental literature and avant-garde jazz music, she began a career of innovation and expansion at an early age, and has followed that path throughout her life. She braved the mores of conventional Japanese society to write explicitly about sexual and spiritual freedom. She read her poetry along with jazz music, inspired by the improvisational freedom and genuine emotional expression she found there. Her books of poetry have received the highest literary awards Japan has to offer. Recognised worldwide, she has been invited to poetry festivals and conferences in every continent. Her poems have been translated into more than twenty languages, and she had performed and read in over thirty countries.