Jordan A.Y. Smith
Editor-in-Chief at ToPoJo starting in 2019.
Jordan writes poetry and translates works by the likes of Yoshimasu Gozo (Alice Iris Red Horse, 2016), Mizuta Noriko (The Road Home 2015; Sea of Blue Algae,2016), and various works by Furukawa Hideo, Nagae Yūki, Saihate Tahi, Fuzuki Yumi, Tanikawa Shuntarō, Alberto Fuguet and dozens more. Author of poetry collection Syzygy (Awai Books, 2020). Co-author of √IC: Redux (with Kanie Naha and Nagae Yuki) and Sea of Trees: Poetic Gateways to Aokigahara (with Arai Takako, Osaki Sayaka and Yotsumoto Yasuhiro). Two time national finalist in Poetry Slam Japan.
Currently Associate Professor of International Humanities at Josai International University, he has previously taught at Waseda University, CSU Long Beach, UCLA, Sophia University, Roger Williams Univ, UC Riverside, and Korea Univ. He earned his doctorate at UCLA (Comparative Literature) and researches in translation studies, Japanese literature, and global comedy. Co-founder of CŌEM. Co-founder of KOTOBA Slam Japan. Partner and Creator at digital marketing and creative software studio Digital Will.
He began ToPoJo life as Japanese Poetry Editor, then was Guest Editor for Volume 4: Heisei Generations, and then served as Managing Editor. See more at his website or at his Academia page.
Taylor Mignon
Taylor Mignon is Editor Emeritus and co-founder of Tokyo Poetry Journal and has advised Japan-themed issues for Prairie Schooner (Summer 1996), Atlanta Review (Spring/Summer 2002) and Vallum (Montreal, 2005). He also translated surrealist poet Shōzō Torii, published as Bearded Cones & Pleasure Blades (2013). Edited the special issues of ToPoJo themed on Japan and the Beats and on poetry and butoh. He is attempting to finish a project on VOU Visual Poetry begun with Karl Young.
Served as Editor-in-Chief for the first three years of ToPoJo's existence.
Barbara Summerhawk
ToPoJo's Editor Emeritus, Barbara Summerhawk, makes migratory flights across, the Pacific to her nesting grounds in the Applegate valley in Southern Oregon where she flies her paraglider over the green river where she swims and works with Applegate Poets and the Applegate Partnership and Watershed Council, a nonprofit whose vision is to restore ecological health to the Applegate through riparian restoration, fish barrier removals and educational programs that encourage sustainable land management practices. Returning to Tokyo in the Fall, she teaches grad and undergrad courses at Daito Bunka university.
In 2010 she won the Golden Crown Literary Award for best anthology for Sparkling Rain: Fiction From Women Who Love Women in Japan. Her poetry and fiction has been published in The Spirit that Moves Us, Poet and Critic, Printed Matter, and many anthologies. She holds a 7th dan in aikido and teaches in her dojo in Nishi Tokyo. She always looks forward to getting through the middle of next Tuesday.....
Jeffrey Johnson
ToPoJo Editor and co-founder, Jeffrey Johnson, is a professor in the English Department of Daito Bunka University where he teaches undergraduate and graduate literature and culture courses. He has written about comparative poetics, and participates in poetry events around Tokyo including reading his own poetry to musical accompaniment.
Author of Haiku Poetics in Twentieth Century Avant-Garde Poetry (Lexington 2011), Bakhtinian Theory in Japanese Studies (Mellen 2001) and translator of 「地形と気象」Landforms & Climates, by Misei Akegata, Keijiro Suga, Sayaka Osaki and Mizuho Ishida (Sayusha, 2016).
Xiao Yue Shan
Poet and editor. China / Japan / Canada.
The chapbook, How Often I Have Chosen Love, won the Frontier Poetry Chapbook Prize and was published in 2019. The full length collection, Then Telling Be the Antidote, won the Tupelo Press Berkshire Prize and is forthcoming in 2022. Recipient of a Canadian Council for the Arts grant in 2021 for a collection of Pacific coast-related poetry and photography. Editor-in-Chief of the Beijing-based literature magazine, Spittoon. Blog Editor at Asymptote Journal. Poetry Editor at Cicada.
Zoria Petkoska K.
ToPoJo Associate Editor Zoria works as the commissioning editor for Tokyo Weekender Magazine. She specializes in travel writing and has written for several media outlets in Japan and abroad. She holds undergraduate and Master’s degrees in English Literature and Translation, with postgraduate research studies in Japanese visual poetry from TUFS.
Zoria P.K. is an award-winning translator, Editor-in-Chief of the literary journal [Ш], and a published poet. Her first poetry book was published when she was 10 years old, and ever since her poetry book Wordigami, she has been dedicating herself to concrete poetry. She writes in English, Macedonian, and Japanese, and has been published in poetry magazines and anthologies in Japan, China, Hong Kong, and the USA, among others.
Currently working on her cyberpunk poetry project.
Mat Chiappe
Topojo Associate Editor and professor and researcher at Waseda University, Mat Chiappe teaches translation of Japanese literature into English and studies the links between Japanese and Latin American literature. He completed his Ph.D. at Waseda, his Master’s at El Colegio de México, and his undergraduate degree in comparative literature at the University of Buenos Aires. A published author and translator in several languages, he regularly translates poetry for the ToPoJo issues.
Follow his blog.
Joy Waller
Joy Waller is a writer and editor based in Tokyo, Japan. Her fiction and poetry have appeared in various literary journals scattered across the globe, and her poetry collection Pause :: Heartbeat was released in 2019. A new book of fragments and ultra-short fiction is in the works. She also works as a technical rewriter and proofreader for tech companies and universities throughout Japan. She is the copyeditor of Tokyo Poetry Journal, hosts a monthly writers’ workshop in Shibuya, and curates the internationally notorious Renegade Book Club on Facebook. She also blogs about creativity, writing, and books at joywaller.com
Board of Advisors
Rona Conti
Forrest Gander
Seiji Lippit
Sawako Nakayasu
Maureen Robertson
Jerome Rothenberg
Doug Slaymaker
John Solt
Keijiro Suga