Katsue Kitasono

was a Japanese poet, photographer, editor, and graphic designer associated with Dada, Surrealism, and visual poetry. He founded the VOU Club and its journal VOU in 1935, and later became especially known for his photographic "Plastic Poems" or "Plastic Poetry".

Life and career Kitasono was born in Ise, Mie Prefecture, Japan. According to background material prepared for a LACMA exhibition, he originally aspired to become a painter, but gained early attention as an avant-garde poet.

In 1929, before founding VOU, Kitasono was among the contributors to Ciné, the avant-garde poetry magazine founded by Chirū Yamanaka.

VOU In 1935, Kitasono established the VOU Club and its avant-garde poetry journal VOU.

Among the VOU circle's members was the photographer and poet Kansuke Yamamoto. In the postwar period, VOU-associated visual poets discussed in overviews of the group include Shōhachirō Takahashi, Motoyuki Itō, Toshihiko Shimizu, and Setsuko Tsuji.

Surrealism, photography, and Plastic Poetry LACMA exhibition materials describe Kitasono as a poet-artist whose early work was shaped by Dada and Surrealism, and emphasize his activity as an editor and graphic designer for poetry and visual-art journals, including VOU.

Archives and legacy Material from Kitasono's library and related avant-garde holdings is preserved as the "Kitasono Katsue Library" (北園克衛文庫) at Tama Art University Art Archives Center. Solt also translated a selection of Kitasono's poems as Glass Beret: The Selected Poems of Kitasono Katsue (1995), which received the Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission Prize for the Translation of Japanese Literature.