With elements of both poetry and memoir, “Borderlines: An Astral Experience in Poems” by Alan Botsford, straddles the boundaries of genre.

Each poem takes the form of a dramatic interior monologue from an imagined viewpoint — a colleague, student, stranger or social media connection — conversing with and piecing together moments in the life of one man: Alan, an American poet living and teaching in Japan.

Inspired by Dante Alighieri's "Divine Comedy," Botsford uses the writer as a medium in his eighth collection of poetry. It started as an experiment with what Botsford describes as “unbidden” poetry: “The book is an attempt at bridging the conscious and unconscious worlds,” he tells The Japan Times, “in an age where the humanistic imagination is devalued in favor of STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) and AI.”

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