To mark the 50th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Ireland and Japan in 1957, Our Shared Japan, edited by Irene De Angelis and Joseph Woods, and with an Afterword by Seamus Heaney, brings together a large selection of poems by Irish writers (both in English and in Irish) written or published during those 50 years. Featuring some of the best-known names in contemporary Irish poetry, it also includes many younger poets who have grown up with and, in various ways, responded to those growing connections.

Some of the poets have visited or spent time in Japan and write from that experience; others respond to a Japan of the imagination, adopting or adapting Japanese poetic technique as a means to expand and enrich their own ways of looking at the world.

In this respect, Our Shared Japan is a celebration of outside influence, but it is also a celebration of the power of poetry, wherever we may travel to find it, to bring us to ourselves.

Our Shared Japan is published with the sponsorship of the Cultural Division of the Department of Foreign Affairs, and with the support of Poetry Ireland.

The featured poets are: Fergus Allen, Dermot Bolger, Pat Boran, David Burleigh, Paddy Bushe, Ruth Carr, Ciaran Carson, Deirdre Cartmill, Juanita Casey, Austin Clarke, Patrick Cotter, Yvonne Cullen, Tony Curtis, Gerald Dawe, Patrick Deeley, Greg Delanty, Moyra Donaldson, Katie Donovan, Mary Dorcey, Katherine Duffy, Seán Dunne, Paul Durcan, Desmond Egan, John Ennis, Peter Fallon, Gerard Fanning, Andrew Fitzsimons, Anthony Glavin, Mark Granier, Pamela Greene, Eamon Grennan, Maurice Harmon, Michael Hartnett, Francis Harvey, Seamus Heaney, Rachael Hegarty, John Hewitt, John Hughes, Pearse Hutchinson, Biddy Jenkinson, Fred Johnston, Eileen Kato, Neville Keery, Thomas Kinsella, Matt Kirkham, Anatoly Kudryavitsky, Michael Longley, Brian Lynch, Derek Mahon, Aidan Carl Mathews, John McAuliffe, James McCabe, Thomas McCarthy, Medbh McGuckian, Peter McMillan, Ted McNulty, Paula Meehan, Dorothy Molloy, Sinéad Morrissey, Paul Muldoon, Gerry Murphy, Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill, Julie O’Callaghan, John O’Donnell, Mary O’Donnell, Desmond O’Grady, Tom O’Malley, Caitríona O’Reilly, Frank Ormsby, Cathal Ó Searcaigh, Micheal O’Siadhail, Eoghan Ó Tuairisc, Justin Quinn, Padraig Rooney, Mark Roper, Gabriel Rosenstock, Richard Ryan, John W. Sexton, Eileen Sheehan, James Simmons, Peter Sirr, Gerard Smyth, Bill Tinley, Joseph Woods, and Macdara Woods.