Torii Shozo was born in 1932 and died in 1994. He was a member of the avant-garde coterie VOU, led by his esteemed mentor, Kitasono Katue. Eight volumes of his poetry, mostly in limited editions of between 125-300 copies, were published between 1955 and 1994. His book collection of Japanese and Western Modernism and Surrealism is one of the most formidable in Japan.