Songs of Bygone Days – The Poetry of Nakahara Chuya Nakahara Chuya (1907–1937) is often called the “Japanese Rimbaud,” yet his voice is entirely his own—lyrical, musical, and unflinchingly intimate. First published in 1938, Songs of Bygone Days gathers poems written in the final years of Chuya’s short life. In them, moonlit gardens and quiet rivers mingle with portraits of friends, memories of love, and the shadow of personal loss. His lines carry a rare musicality—refrains that echo like the tolling of a distant bell, rhythms that move like a slow dance between joy and sorrow. These are poems of presence and impermanence: the laughter of a spring night, the stillness of a winter river, the fragile beauty of a moment before it fades. Beneath their delicacy lies an unshakable honesty; Chuya writes with the candor of one who has looked closely at both beauty and grief, and found them inseparable. This new English edition invites readers to experience Chuya’s unique fusion of Japanese sensibility and modernist poetics. Even in translation, his voice remains unmistakable—by turns whimsical and solemn, tender and fierce. Songs of Bygone Days is not only a cornerstone of modern Japanese poetry but also a testament to the enduring power of verse to speak across languages, cultures, and time. For those who have never read Nakahara Chuya, this collection is an ideal introduction; for those who know his work, it is a return to a voice that still sings, decades after it fell silent.