traci kato-kiriyama
@traciakemitraci kato-kiriyama is a performer, actor, writer, author, educator, and art+community organizer who splits the time and space in her body feeling grounded in gratitude, inspired by audacity, and thoroughly insane—oft times all at once. She’s passionately invested in a number of projects that include Pull Project (PULL: Tales of Obsession); Generations Of War; The (title-ever-evolving) Nikkei Network for Gender and Sexual Positivity; Kizuna; Budokan of LA; and is the Director/Co-Founder of Tuesday Night Project and Co-Curator of its flagship “Tuesday Night Cafe.” She’s working on a second book of writing/poetry attuned to survival, slated for publication next year by Writ Large Press.
Updated August 2013
Stories from This Author
Transformation
Nov. 18, 2021 • Brandon Shimoda , Emily Mitamura , traci kato-kiriyama
Nothing like biting into the palpable words of poets to dig into the transformation that signifies this season. I had a great time reading the work of the writers we feature here this month on Nikkei Uncovered—Colorado-based Brandon Shimoda and Minneapolis-based Emily Mitamura. Lush and sinuous, resilient and expansive—from Emily’s Grub Mother—“…a bit of / your heart / is the most delicious sweet / I’ve ever held / to my / swarming mouth…”—and from Brandon’s The Desert—“…The world / above, the world we …
Fall
Oct. 21, 2021 • Tamiko Beyer , traci kato-kiriyama
The last time we featured Dorchester, MA-based poet, Tamiko Beyer was Spring of 2017, so thought it would be wonderful to have her back to help us usher in Fall with her wonderful work. The selections, from her book Last Days, have a razor’s edge that I love, each line cutting into the next and beckoning us to reckon with anger, shame, and the silences in between. There’s a sharpness that wakes me into the transformation that this season, and …
songs
Sept. 16, 2021 • Doris Moromisato , traci kato-kiriyama
This month, we are pleased to present two poems in Spanish by Peruvian poet Doris Moromisato Miasato. She is an environmentalist, feminist and Buddhist and these two poems are beautiful tribute songs, one for her father and one for the famous Japanese artist Hokusai. From memories evoked to those imagined, his poetry reads like a song of lament, inspiration and wonder. I am grateful to carry these poems with me as we begin to leave summer for fall. I must …
Owed to Amy
Aug. 19, 2021 • Nina Chan , Miya Iwataki , Kathy Nishimoto Masaoka , Keiko Ikari Miya , traci kato-kiriyama
To borrow from the title of one of this month’s features, the theme for this month is all about paying homage to one of our most beloved writers, Amy Uyematsu. Amy has been writing and teaching for decades and is going through the fight of her life right now—and what is a community-based poetry column if not a platform to support the best energies and wishes possible for the better health of one of our own poets? You will see …
Epicanthus
July 15, 2021 • Hiromi Yoshida , traci kato-kiriyama
As we wish you all a wonderful dive into the heat of summer, I am excited to help celebrate the upcoming release of the Epicanthus poetry chapbook by Bloomington, Indiana-based Hiromi Yoshida. While the book’s title harkens toward a condition of obscured views, Hiromi's writing beautifully cuts right through the serpentine surroundings of her experience and that of the world beyond. The selections provided here give a sneak peek into the book’s movement and language and more importantly, Hiromi’s poetic, discerning …
Retracing / Return
June 17, 2021 • Noriko Nakada , Garrett Kurai , traci kato-kiriyama
This month, we feature the lovely words of LA-based poets, Noriko Nakada and Garrett Kurai. I've returned to a practice of penning letters, cards, personal messages to be sent by post or out into the ether for recipients I may never actually meet, and when I read through the words of these writers, I thought a lot of the cycle of remembrance and homage...how when we return, in writing, to our memories, we have a new conversation with the past...how …
Dancing in the Clouds
May 20, 2021 • Shō Tanaka , Paulette M. Moreno , traci kato-kiriyama
This month, we have the honor of publishing works by two poets who lent their voices to our second annual reading last week for “Nikkei Uncovered”—Shō Tanaka and Paulette M. Moreno. They both took great care in what and how they delivered their words together as a pairing that we featured alongside Amy Uyematsu & Miya Iwataki, and Mariko Fujimoto Rooks & Dr. Curtiss Takada Rooks. I was struck not only by the beauty of their storytelling, but the vessels …
Hailing
April 15, 2021 • Miya Iwataki , traci kato-kiriyama
This month, we are honored to again feature the fierce Miya Iwataki, a veteran activist, core member of NCRR (Nikkei for Civil Rights & Redress), and writer based in Los Angeles. She presents four poems here—an observation of and hailing to the world around her, from the intimate to the masses. Miya will be featured in our 2nd annual Nikkei Uncovered virtual poetry reading on May 13 (RSVP required), where we will feature “pairs” of writers. She will be paired with …
Year-ending
March 18, 2021 • Amy Uyematsu , Tamiko Nimura , traci kato-kiriyama
As we survey the past year of lockdowns and quarantines that started here in the States by mid-March, 2020, we take stock of a wide spectrum of revelations and experiences over the last twelve months. From new personal practices and experiments in the arena of safer-at-home, to illness and loss, further exposure of inequities and suffering, uprising and reckoning, community unlearning and building—we share the works of two artists who give us a glimmer of their lives through poetics about …
In this moment
Feb. 18, 2021 • Rino Kodama , Carolee Okamoto , traci kato-kiriyama
While we typically link a theme together from the poems we receive from two or more writers, this month we're featuring two voices whose pieces are situated very personally within their own moments, within their own season. Seattle-based Sansei Carolee Okamoto just began writing in 2017 as a way to process her family history and shares with us a poem linked to the annual Day Of Remembrance commemorating the signing of Executive Order 9066. And at the top here, along …
