Cindy Rucker Trost

A visually stunning work—dense and chaotic, in the most beautiful way. It’s worth grabbing a magnifying glass before sitting down, because as the saying goes, “You Don’t Want to Miss a Thing.” Fujimoto employs bold colors, dynamic shapes, handwriting, doodles, cut-outs, erasure, and a kaleidoscope of collage layering techniques to convey emotion on every page. Alongside her main narratives, she places sidebar comments or “hidden stories”—sometimes funny, sometimes stark and biting, always gifts for the reader to uncover and ponder.

Given our current culture, I found one piece particularly poignant. On A Black Hill transports the reader back to World War II. Its first line—“The atomic bomb in Hiroshima; Grandfather stood alone”—is scrawled in a textbox, handwritten as if by a schoolgirl, set against a sky-blue watercolor background. Beneath it, another box: “His mother listened to an imperial speech. Japan was lost. Mud beneath her finger nails [sic],”[1] And just below are red stripes and blue stars on a dingy white background, which evoke the American flag. Where three stripes have been cut away, Fujimoto has written:

a stranger gave him a towel.

The nearly white towel,

he wiped.

The title, ON A BLACK HILL, stretches diagonally across the page in bold capitals. The “O” anchors the bottom left corner, while the “H” becomes entwined with a flower stem that threads its way through two molars—yes, teeth. The stem curves upward between the words “her finger” before blossoming into a fiery bloom of red, yellow, and orange that reaches the upper right edge.

Beneath the title, the right half of the page is dominated by a hill constructed from layered origami circles, some patterned, others solid. The lower half in shades of reds and pinks, while the upper half darkens into shades of blue, black, and purple. Superimposed across the hill are fragments of narrative and image: a boy stands at the summit beside a textbox that reads “Miles away.” Below him, shrouded mourners gather, one figure’s hand stretching upward. Across their image lie two scorched strips of paper—this is where a magnifying glass came in handy—inscribed with words barely visible beneath the soot: “A last word adheres to their throats.”

The grief of that image is jarred by what comes next: a cheery little girl asking, “Will I go to war?” Opposite her, a woman struggles with a screaming baby strapped to her back as she vacuums. Her speech bubble reads, “A heavy, dusty book.” She is using the vacuum to suck A Photo Documentary Auschwitz into the canister.

After reading GLYPH, I wanted to know more about Fujimoto, her inspiration, and how she came to embrace cross-disciplinary poetry and hone her craft.  In her own words, Naoko Fujimoto explains that the title GLYPH connects to her childhood fascination with Egyptian hieroglyphs. Growing up in Nagoya, she became intrigued after her father bought her a souvenir coffin replica with hieroglyphic characters during a family trip to the British Museum. Without the internet, she relied on scholarly resources and the help of her grandfather’s linguist friend to decipher the inscription. That experience sparked her lifelong interest in weaving together words, images, and phonetic expression. The "trans" in trans. sensory means both translate and transport. Fujimoto translates her written English-language poems into visual form, aiming to transport readers’ senses beyond flat paper by merging words with images.[2]

Many of the materials Fujimoto used to craft GLYPH and her other works come from personal mementos and cultural artifacts. She often worked with origami and washi papers given to her by her grandfather, purchased at Matsukado Stationary Store in Takayama, Japan. Later, while living in the United States and unable to find the “ideal” materials, she turned to everyday ephemera—supermarket advertisements, birthday wrapping paper, postcards, bills, magazines—anything she could glue to the base paper.[3]

GLYPH: graphic poetry = trans. sensory is a striking reminder of how poetry can live beyond the page, weaving together history, memory, and visual art in ways that feel both intimate and expansive. Fujimoto’s cross-disciplinary approach is immersive—poetry you don’t just read or hear but take in with your whole body. At times you have to tilt the book, even turn a page upside down, as if your body, too, must participate in the act of understanding. Her inventive work left me not only moved as a reader but also newly inspired as a writer to keep exploring the possibilities of cross-disciplinary expression. Remember, GLYPH rewards seekers, so take your time—and keep your magnifying glass at the ready.

[1] Naoko Fujimoto, GLYPH: graphic poetry = trans. sensory (Madison, NJ: Tupelo Press, 2021), page 3. The line reads “Mud beneath her finger nails,” with “finger nails” presented as two words in the original.

[2] Naoko Fujimoto, interview by Kristina Marie Darling, “Translate & Transport: A Conversation with Naoko Fujimoto & A Graphic Poem,” Tupelo Quarterly, August 14, 2021, https://www.tupeloquarterly.com/editors-feature/translate-transport-a-conversation-with-naoko-fujimoto-a-graphic-poem-curated-by-kristina-marie-darling/.

[3] Fujimoto, GLYPH, Afterword.