Literary Nonfiction. Essays. Asian American Studies. Edited by Bill Freind. SCUBADIVERS AND CHRYSANTHEMUMS is a collection of essays on the poetry of Araki Yasuada. The book includes essays by Bill Freind, Eliot Weinberger, Marjorie Perloff, Forrest Gander, Mikhail Epstein, Kent Johnson, Brian McHale, Paisley Rekdal, Jenny Boully, Alex Verdolini, Eric R. J. Hayot, Jacob Edmond, Martin Corless-Smith, Farid Matuk, David Rosenberg, David Wojahn, Hosea Hirata and Dan Hoy.

"Araki Yasusada, allegedly a survivor of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, had his work published posthumously and in translation in the mid-1990s. The work was widely praised and seemed to fuse traditional Japanese forms and themes with more innovative North American techniques and a sprinkling of French critical theory. However, Yasusada was an invention, and while no one claimed responsibility for the work, most readers agree that Kent Johnson was the creator, although Johnson insists the actual author is Tosa Motokiyu, the pseudonym for an unnamed writer who is now dead."—Bill Freind

Bill Freind is the author of American Field Couches (BlazeVOX books, 2008). His poems have appeared in Jacket2 and Combo. Most recently, he edited the collection SCUBADIVERS AND CHRYSANTHEMUMS: ESSAYS ON THE POETRY OF ARAKI YASUSADA (Shearsman Books, 2011).