Nikkei a Descoberto: uma coluna de poesia

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 with their beautiful artwork, we feature some stream-of-consciousness prose by Rino Kodama. I offered Rino a few prompts (“what ...

Leaving the end of a long 2020 while entering 2021 with a combination of uncertainty, excitement, determined joy, and perpetual angst, I thought it fitting to have this month’s theme derive its inspiration from the writer and the title of his latest book of poetry, Seize. This month’s feature, Brian Komei Dempster—a Sansei author and educator based in the Bay Area of California—graciously provided us with a handful of beautiful pieces from Seize, based upon my request to think on the ideas of “transformation” and “renewal.” The two we are able to present here are striking ...

To close out 2020 and recognize it as a time of challenge, reckoning and coming together, we are excited to end on a strong and beautiful note with this month's feature. We are happy to host the return to Nikkei Uncovered by Mariko Fujimoto Rooks and, this time, feature Mariko alongside her father, Dr. Curtiss Takada Rooks (while it's his first time in this poetry column, he is certainly no stranger to Discover Nikkei). You'll want to check out essays from both of them on the Discover Nikkei site, but first - heed their collaborative piece, this intergenerational ...

We have the immense pleasure of presenting several haiku from Boshichō Okamura for November. Ever since his grandson, Michael Okamura (of the Little Tokyo Historical Society), began sharing his haiku with me, I've dreamed of recreating a haiku club in Little Tokyo in homage to the Agosto-Sha poetry club that Boshichō co-founded in the early 1920s. No matter what time of year or moment of strife we are going through in the world, there's a wonderful light and solace I find through these poems. It is a great honor to share several haiku (alongside some great photographs) in ...

Hello to you all in the midst of October and the beginning of our final quarter for 2020. I’ve asked the folks we’re featuring this quarter to share pieces of reflection, whether of the immediate, or of a lifetime thus far. Today’s piece from San Francisco-based, Shin-Nisei, Yukiya Jerry Waki, is a look at many voices and stories over time that have crossed his path on a journey of moments, and memories made. Enjoy...

— traci kato-kiriyama

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Yukiya Jerry Waki works as an advocate for re-envisioning nutrition programs in schools. He moonlights as a spoken word artist, writer ...