FACES IN THE CROWDS: A Tokyo International Anthology, edited by Hillel Wright. Printed Matter Press: Tokyo, 2002, 254 pp., 2 yen,500/$25 (cloth) "Faces in the Crowds" is a hyperkinetic grab bag that brings work by a cross section of Tokyo's expat writers, and Japanese writers working in English, together in an act of literary homage.

Many of the authors in these pages have strutted their stuff at events such as the "Power of the Spoken Word" series hosted by Taylor Mignon and the open-mike sessions held at What the Dickens, a British pub in Ebisu. They've honed their work at meetings of the Tokyo Writers Group and Temple University Japan Poets, and published it in Wingspan, Printed Matter and Yomimono and through Saru Press and other local literary presses and magazines.

The book's publisher, Printed Matter Press, locally owned and (usually) cooperatively operated, has managed to survive and thrive for 30 years, with new editors at the helm every so often to morph the journal into a reflection of the Tokyo zeitgeist, whatever it might be.

The expat literary community is in a constant state of flux, giving it a fluid, spontaneous quality, like a parade or a carnival. Editor Hillel Wright, a poet, novelist and coeditor with Mignon of the recent bilingual anthology "Poesie Yaponesia," has captured perfectly that flux in this bursting-at-the-seams collection. Wright seems to delight in the offbeat moment.