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.

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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.

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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).