April Naoko Heck
April Naoko Heck nació en Tokio, Japón en 1971 y se mudó a los Estados Unidos siete años después. Sus poemas han aparecido más recientemente en Artful Dodge , Borderland: Texas Quarterly Review , Epiphany y Shenandoah . Recibió un premio AWP Intro Journals y realizó una residencia de escritores en VCCA. Actualmente trabaja como coordinadora de lecturas en el Programa de Escritura Creativa de la Universidad de Nueva York y vive en Brooklyn.
Actualizado en abril de 2010
Historias de Este Autor
Poems: "Spark," "Distances" & "All day people poured into Asano Park"
25 de abril de 2010 • April Naoko Heck
SparkUse room-temperature water, never ice. Skin holds heat,you think you’re more burned than you are.Your singed hair crimps and smells like eggsthat once cooked on the farmhouse’s old gas stove.Bathwater runs faster than a sink’s, you kneelto turn your face under the tub’s faucet.If you’d followed directions, you’d bein the pasture instead, palming sugar to the horses. Which sent you reeling back, the oven’s flashor pressure, the heat or fear? Obaasan fell forwardbut that was different, that was a great …
Poems: "Conversation with My Mother" & "Translation"
18 de abril de 2010 • April Naoko Heck
Conversation with My Mother How much fabric was left? Not much. Boro-boro, Obaasan said. Shreds. And your mother recognized her by the fabric Yes. If the fabric was in shreds, she was almost naked? No, she wore white cotton undergarments. And they still covered her body? They covered her body. They weren’t torn like her blouse and pants? They covered her body. What did the pattern of the fabric look like? I don’t remember, but it couldn’t have been beautiful. …
Poem: "The Leaf Book"
11 de abril de 2010 • April Naoko Heck
The Leaf BookIn the fall of third grade, when my teacherassigns the leaf-book project—collectand name at least a dozen tree leaves—my dad drives our family to an arboretum,he brings a field guide and we’re all leaf-picking,all saying gingko, chestnut, walnut, buckeye.Mama writes down American names,learns too that rootbeer-scented sassafras bearthree kinds of leaves: mittens, gloves, and palms. The night before my book’s due, he stays up.He helps sort leaf after leaf, irons thembetween waxpaper pages he’s cut.By the circular light …
