James Shea has risen to this age-long challenge in his beautifully crafted translation of “Applause for a Cloud,” Kamakura Sayumi’s latest collection (Black Ocean, 2025). A poet in his own right, Shea brings a crystalline language to the dense and endlessly changeable process of translation, offering English-language readers a ride along Kamakura’s intercontinental itinerary, including stops in Morocco and Italy.