Books to Peel

Peel the author and tap a cover to peel the book

Peel me a Book

Hiromi Itō

“I speak from the womb and the grave at the same time.”

The Thorn Puller

The Thorn Puller

Peel the Author

Hiromi Itō is a Japanese poet, essayist, and translator known for her fierce, lyrical, and corporeal voice. Born in 1955, she first gained recognition in Japan for her bold poetry addressing sexuality, motherhood, and death—topics still taboo in many literary circles. She later moved to Southern California, where her work began to incorporate migration, aging, and spiritual displacement.

Her writing does not merely describe the body—it is the body. A body that gives birth, that bleeds, that remembers. A body that mourns generations while boiling rice for the living. She blends the domestic with the divine, the grotesque with the holy. Her voice is wild and intimate, like someone reciting a prayer with food still in her mouth.

Voice

“I am my mother. I am the daughter. I am the mountain. I am the one who bathes the dead.”

Itō speaks from multiple mouths at once. Her poems are not narratives—they are possessions. They hold the reader between languages, between borders, between identities, and do not let go.

Tone

incantatory · raw · poetic · ancestral

Mood

embodied · mythic · tender · unruly

Peel the layers

Voice

“I am my mother. I am the daughter. I am the mountain. I am the one who bathes the dead.”

Itō speaks from multiple mouths at once. Her poems are not narratives—they are possessions. They hold the reader between languages, between borders, between identities, and do not let go.

Tone

incantatory · raw · poetic · ancestral

Mood

embodied · mythic · tender · unruly

Peel the the layers

Author's Peel

Peel the author and tap a cover to peel the book

Books to Peel

Peel the author and tap a cover to peel the book

Peel me a Book

Hiromi Itō

“I speak from the womb and the grave at the same time.”

The Thorn Puller

The Thorn Puller

Peel the Author

Hiromi Itō is a Japanese poet, essayist, and translator known for her fierce, lyrical, and corporeal voice. Born in 1955, she first gained recognition in Japan for her bold poetry addressing sexuality, motherhood, and death—topics still taboo in many literary circles. She later moved to Southern California, where her work began to incorporate migration, aging, and spiritual displacement.

Her writing does not merely describe the body—it is the body. A body that gives birth, that bleeds, that remembers. A body that mourns generations while boiling rice for the living. She blends the domestic with the divine, the grotesque with the holy. Her voice is wild and intimate, like someone reciting a prayer with food still in her mouth.

Voice

“I am my mother. I am the daughter. I am the mountain. I am the one who bathes the dead.”

Itō speaks from multiple mouths at once. Her poems are not narratives—they are possessions. They hold the reader between languages, between borders, between identities, and do not let go.

Tone

incantatory · raw · poetic · ancestral

Mood

embodied · mythic · tender · unruly

Peel the layers

Voice

“I am my mother. I am the daughter. I am the mountain. I am the one who bathes the dead.”

Itō speaks from multiple mouths at once. Her poems are not narratives—they are possessions. They hold the reader between languages, between borders, between identities, and do not let go.

Tone

incantatory · raw · poetic · ancestral

Mood

embodied · mythic · tender · unruly

Peel the the layers

Author's Peel

Peel the author and tap a cover to peel the book