Introduction

    I took a big gamble when I first chose Okita as my poet. Though I love "In Response to Executive Order 9066…," it was his only poem I had read. He had one other poem published in an anthology, but the rest of his poetry was in Crossing with the Light, an elusive book that was conveniently unavailable at all libraries and bookstores. Nevertheless, I decided to stick with Okita, basing my poet selection off of just one poem. I hardly knew anything about him, yet I convinced myself I would enjoy his poetry by the time the book arrived. Yet now, I realize it was not a completely hasty decision. Though it was true I had hardly seen any of his work, I read his website extensively. Through his simple information and updates, Okita seemed like such a genuine and enthusiastic poet. He is not trying to put himself above his fans; he is completely willing to share any and all details of his life with his readers. Even before I received the book, I loved his style. I chose Okita because of the close, approachable relationship he has created between his readers and his writing. I mean, he even has a YOUTUBE account!

    This willingness to share information became the theme for the rest of my project. Okita is a very public person, so I felt that my project should be as well. The most appropriate method for presenting Okita in such a light would ultimately be a blog. Okita actively asks readers for suggestions and advice on his work. He is currently finalizing his short story, one that was entered in the Amazon novel contest last year. He has posted on his website, "I am busy at work on revisions to my novel based on all the great feedback I got" from readers. This comment speaks volumes about his personality as a writer. He wants to involve readers in his writing process; he is open to different perspectives on his work. I am very impressed with his style, and I have aimed to preserve this sense of interaction within my project.

    I believe I made gross assumptions about his actual poetry in the beginning as well. I had initially set off to find a poet that wrote about Asian American identity, a topic that is of personal significance to me. His poems about his mother's internment camp experience are the pieces most widely anthologized, and I expected the rest of his work to be similar. I was clearly mistaken as I read through his book. Okita has so many ideas to express and so many topics to explore. It was unfair of me to assume that he was primarily an "Asian American" writer, as portrayed in so many poetry collections. Okita simply writes what he knows. While some of these stories may be related to his heritage, it is certainly not limited to just that.

    In his poem "Notes for a Poem on Being Asian American," Okita recalls several encounters with people who judged him for his appearance. Perhaps then, for me, this project was about erasing assumptions I have made about Okita. He is an eager and passionate writer; he writes from his own stories. My end goal of this project is to maintain this openness. To continue in his style, I will now pass on to new readers what I have learned about [and from] Dwight Okita.

Update

 

Hello to all my fans!

It's me again, I'm sorry I haven't posted in a while. I've been so busy with revising my book, The Prospect of My Arrival. I am still so unbelievably excited that it was chosen to be one of the top three out of FIVE THOUSAND in Amazon.com's novel contest. I've been busy editing, and I'm hoping to publish (!) soon! I've been talking to some producers about a film as well… AND I'm starting a new book, tentatively called Dear Everyone. I'm hoping to get a short story collection out too!

I've been trying out all different sorts of writing recently… I haven't written much poetry after my book Crossing with the Light was published in 1992… I've been working on some more plays and of course, novels.

So that's some really good news that I'd like to share with you guys, my amazing and SUPPORTING fans. Writing really is a way to share my experiences with the world. From my experiences with anti-depressants to ex boyfriends, it feels good to put it out there. Did you know that I once posed as the chef on a Kellogg's Corn Flakes box? I like my current job as a writer a lot better! : )

In other news… even here in the Windy City, I am disappointed with the passing of Prop 8 in California. It's so frustrating that they have banned gay marriage yet again. I've been alive for fifty years, lived in Chicago pretty much my whole life, and I have witnessed some truly momentous decisions in America's history. And my mom especially, she even went through the Japanese internment camps. I am proud to be Japanese American, I am proud to be gay. Yet, even after all this time, I guess there are still unresolved civil rights issues…

I'll try to post again later… I've got a lot to keep you guys posted on!

Introduction to Reader

    Assembling the reader was especially hard because of Okita's lack of more poems. I had initially expected this to be an easier process, given that he has only twenty nine published poems. However, it was actually more difficult to capture the various emotions and themes of his work within eight poems. Though all of his poems are open form, they differ in tone and topic. In this collection, I have compiled the poems by recurring theme, ordering them according to progression in emotion and subject.

    All these poems represent the many facets of Okita's style. "Suburban Graffiti" has the dry humor that is found in his other works. I placed it as the first poem because of its introduction to Okita's voice. Like most of his other poems, there are many personal pronouns. All of Okita's pieces are personal accounts; he writes only of experiences that have impacted his life. In this way, "Suburban Graffiti" introduces Okita as a confessional poet, never using a fictional persona to tell a story. It should be noted that "In Response to Executive Order 9066…" was written from his mother's point of view as a fourteen year-old girl. This, however, remains the only exception in which Okita adopts another identity. Even in this case, it is a persona with which he is familiar; it is not fictional.

    The next couple poems are linked by the theme of love. "Poem for the Unnamed" is similar to the others he writes as it concerns everyday acts, common events that are not necessarily profound until examined. This poem concerns parental love and care for a child, contrasted to the sexual love found in the following two poems. "My Parents:: How They Met" also earns a place in the reader because it is the only rhyming poem in Okita's published collection. Its use of quotations is a characteristic commonly employed in his poems about his mother's internment experience. These "love" poems also introduce the pronoun you, a style that Okita uses to make the poems more direct for the reader. His poems invite the reader into the stories.

    "Kitchen" and "Facing the Mannequin" are two poems that reflect the notion of exclusion. "Kitchen" literally does not fit in with the rest of Okita's poems, as there is no first person narrative present. The woman does not belong in the "kitchen"; she is trapped like the plastic doll in "Facing the Mannequin."

    Finally, there are the "path" poems. These poems tie in with the title of Okita's book, Crossing with the Light. Many of his poems contain this "movement" imagery of walking, running, or crossing into a new path. As the speaker in "We're Given a Father for Such a Short Time" talks to his father about arriving "some place else", "Etch-a-Sketch" conveys the idea of shaking away the past. Both convey the message of embracing the future, stepping over a threshold to experience something new.

    These poems hardly capture Okita's range of tone. However, they do capture his style of enjambed prose lines filled with artistic imagery. His poems are intimate. In reading through the book, each work is a snapshot of Okita's memories at that moment in time. Some of these events were more significant than others, yet all impacted his life in some way.

Suburban Graffiti

There is a paint factory I pass on my way home.

One white wall of it faces the sidewalk

and at night young boys take flashlights and spray paint

and tell the wall everything they know:

 

    LISA S. IS A BITCH

    THIS TOWN IS IN THE TWILIGHT ZONE

    I CAME. I SAW. I LEFT.

 

And once a month the owners paint the wall white

and hope.

 

Sometimes I think I see my name

in the scrawls they leave

of black and blue but no –

it's DOUG or DANNY and I walk on.

 

I pass by the wall today and look for news:

 

Sharon loves Phil this month.

Julie and Nick are still together.

Lisa S. is still a bitch.

 

 

Poem for the Unnamed

They say if you don't

name a child when it is born,

it will start crawling north,

unable to be pulled back

by the string of its name.

It will start the party

without you, without names.

 

Once on a busy downtown street,

I saw a woman lower

a blue rope around her

two children saying:

"This is for safety.

Because I love you" –

and she pulled the knot closed.

A perfect lasso of love.

and so her children went

in blue orbit around her,

and so wherever they wandered

she could pull them back

by the string of their names.

 

Or perhaps they had

no names. And so

she bound them tight

with ropes, afraid they

would go spinning away from her,

without names,    

     without ropes,

         away.

 

 

My Parents :: How They Met

It was a picnic where they first laid eyes

"Maybe it was my hair that made him look"

My mother shrugs back thirty years and sighs

My father snores, his hands around a book

 

"He brought me napkins when the food was served

My skirt was green and flared around my knees"

Under the weight of rice, their paper plates curved

They sat, two people meeting under the trees

 

"I guess it was my hair, I had it done –

short in back and curly on the top"

She runs a finger where a curl would be

Father stirs, the book he's holding drops

 

He rises now and climbs the stairs these nights

They meet again beneath ceilings painted white.

Miguel in Paradise

He walks the few steps

from his life to yours.

 

He points to the center of Mexico

where he comes from, scratches

an invisible map on the palm of your hand.

 

This woman he walks up hills with

in San Luis Potosi

is here beside him. Speaks English.

 

Love, with an interpreter. Sometimes

the interpreter falls in love by mistake,

the words passing through her like a current,

like a thin blue wire.

 

A silver ball turns throwing light around the room –

into a dark corner

where a couple sits unnamed

on a grey sofa, into

a strawberry daiquiri tilting

down a young woman's throat.

 

His stovepipe jeans, worn white in places.

 

With one look in your eyes, he tries to enter

your country. Each word he speaks

takes him one step further away

from home.

 

The pattern of our feet across the floor.

If we dance long enough in one place,

it becomes ours.

 

A yellow wedge of neon

winks above our heads, a false moon.

It is all we have.

 

When he asks you your name

you think hard, knowing it is something

he will not give back easily.

 

Tell me a story, he says in English.

 

You take him to a room where you undo

the long line of black buttons on his sweater.

You tell him the story.

Kitchen

for Charlene

 

Here in this room

where many women go under,

die quiet dishwater deaths,

one woman is holding on:

fingers reaching

for buttons and switches

for Pyrex, for Teflon, for Tupperware

all the gods she prayed to

to protect her

for wax paper dreams

folded in with each sandwich

she wraps and sends out

into the world.

 

She wants to find

a baby on her doorstep

and ask no questions.

She wants to turn to

the man in bed with her and ask

"What have you done with my husband?"

She wants to go back

to her wedding day

and explain.

 

Instead she leaves a note

under the butter dish.

"To whom it may concern:

My heart, this rented space

with hot and cold running water,

two bedrooms and no children.

You are not who I thought you were."

 

When she leaves this room, she leaves for good.

She does not bother to push in her chair.

 

Facing the Mannequin

She's been made to stand naked

in windows, waiting for her clothes

as they formed on sketch pads

under the drag of the designer's pencil.

She has sat in cardboard boxes

at the warehouse, bent at the waist,

spiders binding her feet with silk.

 

Now she is tired of all this.

She wants to open her plastic mouth and speak,

of the mannequin's life:

a life of entrances into rooms she cannot love,

how she is allowed only one gesture a month

to convey everything, how when women

hail taxis at night they become still

and they remind her of herself.

    ::

There is a fine line between the mannequin

and me and I draw it everyday. But sometimes

I sit in a chair too long, get lost

in thoughts of my ordinary life.

I recognize a gesture of mine in a window

and it startles me, consider

climbing up there to take it back.

 

But I am more than the gestures I make.

    ::

We eye each other through the glass,

enter a poker game in which our faces

give nothing away. I look at the patio

she is standing in, its lawnchairs and barbeque,

her calm in the middle of any meal.

 

She sees how the sidewalk extends

beyond the frame of her window,

the way my shirt moves when I breathe.

We’re Given a Father for Such a Short Time

I walk out onto the dock

as far as I can go in the rain,

the rain with its many arrows

pointing to the earth

where you have gone

fishing. I wonder what it was

you loved about fishing,

had nothing to do with fish.

Had more to do with the lake.

How in these long stretches

of time you became son

to the lake and it raised you,

loved you back with its waves

and water, its shiny blue fish.

 

In Buddhism, we believe

in Cause and Effect. You can't leave

one place without arriving

some place else

Here's to your safe arrival –

wherever that is. Here's to

the universe that gave me a father

for such a short time.

"Here, take Fred. But give him back

when you're done." When you're done

doing the things that ganels do

with fathers that fish.

Tell jokes about The One That Got Away,

spin him around three times

till he walks back confused

in another direction, another life,

becomes my barber, my busybody neighbor,

my best friend.

 

Pin the tail on your life.

Recognize it from a speeding car.

Here's to the car that gets you there.

Here's to the traffic that gets

in your way.

Etch-a-Sketch

Already the sky has forgotten everything:

    how to darken its picture,

how to draw circles around the moon,

the proper spacing of the stars.

 

It's always this way, he says.

First the stars go, then the year,

fading like the white dot

after the TV's been turned off.

 

And once a year

we shake it loose the sky,

our Etch-a-Sketch plans –

    all the people that didn't last,

all the glue that didn't hold,

rainchecks, rendezvous, everything

that fell through.

 

I pushed open the door

that held me there and ran

headlong into the new year.

Notes for a Poem on Being Asian American: Explication

Notes for a Poem on Being Asian American

 

As a child, I was a fussy eater

and I would separate the yolk from the egg white

as I now try to sort out what is Asian

in me from what is American –

the east from the west, the dreamer from the dream.

But countries are not

like eggs – except in the fragileness

of their shells – and eggs resemble countries

only in that when you crack one open and look inside,

you know even less than when you started.

 

And so I crack open the egg,

and this is what I see:

two moments from my past that strike me

as being uniquely Asian American.

 

In the first, I'm walking down Michigan Avenue

one day – a man comes up to me out of the blue and says:

"I just wanted to tell you…I was on the plane that

bombed Hiroshima. And I just wanted you to know that

what we did was for the good of everyone." And it

seems as if he's asking for my forgiveness. It's 1983,

there's a sale on Marimekko sheets at the Crate &

Barrel, it's a beautiful summer day and I'm talking to

a man I've never seen before and will probably never

see again. His statement has no connection to me –

and has every connection in the world. But it's not

for me to forgive him. He must forgive himself.

"It must have been a very difficult decision to do what

you did," I say and I mention the sale on Marimekko

sheets across the street, comforters, and how the

pillowcases have the pattern of wheat printed on them,

and how some nights if you hold them before an open

window to the breeze, they might seem like flags –

like someone surrendering after a great while, or

celebrating, or simply cooling themselves in the summer

breeze as best they can.

 

In the second moment – I'm in a taxi and the Iranian

cabdriver looking into the rearview mirror notices my

Asian eyes, those almond shapes, reflected in the glass

and says, "Can you really tell the difference between

a Chinese and a Japanese?"

 

And I look at his 3^rd World face, his photo I.D. pinned

to the dashboard like a medal, and I think of the eggs

we try to separate, the miles from home he is and the

minutes from home I am, and I want to say: "I think

it's more important to find the similarities between

people than the differences." But instead I simply

look into the mirror, into his beautiful 3^rd World

eyes, and say, "Mr. Cabdriver, I can barely tell the

difference between you and me."

 

    The first paradox of the poem is within the title. Are the following lines and stanzas simply notes in preparation for a poem about being Asian American? Are the speaker's thoughts actually notes in a poem format? Would this even be considered a poem? The structure of the poem reads as a set of notes, as the speaker recounts two moments in separate thoughts and stanzas. This division in the poem further supports the idea that these are simply notes for a poem yet to be crafted, yet the piece is in a poetry anthology. Just in the title, there is confusion about the nature of this work. This introduces the theme of conflict and opposition that is echoed throughout the rest of the poem.

    In the first stanza, the speaker writes of many conflicts. While literally, these comparisons stand on their own, metaphorically, the pairs all connote the differences between "Asian" and "American." While it is common culinary practice to "separate the yolk from the egg white," it is also symbolic of separating the differences of yellow skin from white skin. Even as a child, the speaker possessed an innate inclination to not mix the two together. As years progress, the speaker is still trying to separate these two identities, one from the east, and one from the west. The speaker also acknowledges that appearances can be deceiving. A traveler will "know even less than when [he] started" when traveling to a new country. Similarly, the speaker's heritage is much more complex than assumed stereotypes. This first stanza introduces the two separate identities that are both part of the speaker.

    The speaker acknowledges that being "Asian American" is far different from being just "Asian" or just "American". No matter how hard the speaker tries to cleanly draw lines between his two identities, it is impossible because he shares both.

    After this introduction, the speaker recounts two moments. In the first one, another opposition is introduced. While the speaker thinks about the "Marimekko sheets" he wants to buy at Crate & Barrel, a stranger on the street is "asking for [his] forgiveness". Yet the speaker has no existing connections to the Hiroshima bombings, he is paying more attention to the sheet sale. This event shows the speaker's disconnect from both his Asian side and from American strangers. While people on the street assume that he must harbor some grudge for the atomic bombings, he hardly sees how they are relevant in his life. The "sheets" that the speaker continues to refer to is compared to a "flag" in a simile at the end of this stanza. The flag can be seen as surrender of defeat, or of relaxation and contentment. While others perceive that the speaker is waiting for an apology for Hiroshima, he is actually "simply cooling [himself] in the summer breeze". This moment shows the speaker sorting out the American from the Asian within him. In this moment, he ultimately associates more with his American side.

    In the second story, the speaker recounts the confusion of an Iranian cabdriver about Chinese versus Japanese. As his conversation with the taxi driver continues, he notes that he is only "minutes from home." The speaker associates with his American side as home. This marks a change in the speaker's motives. He realizes that he has spent too much time noting the differences between two identities, and not enough time on finding the similarities. By the end of the poem, the speaker stops his sorting. Instead of separating the yolk from the egg, the Asian from the American, he learns to take things as a whole.

    The progress of the poem conveys the evolution of the speaker's beliefs. By the end of the poem, the original oppositions have joined together. The title represents this discovered union. Just as the speaker is neither Asian, nor American, but Asian-American, the piece stands as a poem and works as notes for a further developed poem. Ultimately, it is a mixture of both; the "poem part" cannot be distinguished from the "notes part." Similarly, the speaker's two identities have fused together. This uniting dissolves the conflicts between all the pairs mentioned in the beginning stanza. He is no longer establishing new conflictions; he does not even bother to differentiate the cab driver from himself. Through these two moments that mark the speaker "as being uniquely Asian American", he learns to focus more on "the similarities between people than the differences."

Where The Boys Were: Historical Approach

Where The Boys Were

 

1:: The Nightmare

It was the year Madonna

came into public view

and left her bellybutton print in cement

in front of Grauman's Chinese Theatre.

 

But it's the nightmare

I keep remembering

of boys falling from trees,

from the sky.

Boys landing in construction sites,

quarries, on top of buses, at intersections

where the lights go green all at once.

 

Turn your head to cough

and 5,000 boys fall from the sky.

It's frightening. Light candles

in Central Park to their shadows

falling all night. Push them back

into heaven with our little flames.

 

2 :: The Media

I met a man named Bruce

at an AIDS conference

who was getting better. TV camera

closed in on him, lenses sparkling with good news, they help him up

to the nation as a symbol of hope.

He's dead now.

 

And I read in the paper about Jim -

a man from Texas who has AIDS.

When he was little, his concept of heaven

was a canasta game with lots of coffee and cigarettes

But recently in the shower,

he found a maroon splotch on his arm.

Maroon, like a color they leave somewhere.

 

And now heaven seems closer somehow.

He can almost hear the shuffling of cards

from somewhere high up and far away.

 

3 :: A Man Chooses His Funeral Urn

Sometimes a man sits down on stone steps

beside the pink and brown jar

which will contain him. It could be

a teapot, but there's no spout. He's dying.

He sits down in the middle of the stone steps

as if in the middle of his life.

Lifts the lid,

the pretty bubblegum pink ceramic urn

with brown Japanese strokes

swirled in. He lifts the lid

and looks deep into it:

 

So this is where I'm headed.

So this will be my new home.

 

He's tired, he wants

to rest his thinning legs.

Wants to hold

that pink and brown teapot

gently in his hands, as it will one day

hold him. Whisper something

sweet and funny into the empty space

so that he will not be alone

when he gets there.

A nickname. Baby Doll.

 

4 :: Voice

When they look at my life

like a charcoal sketch

ripped from a pad, tell them

I wasn't done.

That there was color to be added –

oranges, pinks, greys.

That all the lines would eventually lead

toward the horizon, some vanishing

point past the paper's edge.

 

Tell them how finally

there was nothing left of me:

I ran out of dance steps on a crowded floor,

the parquet wood cracked

beneath my feet.

 

How I threw my name into the air

and it came down faded ticker tape,

unreadable.

 

I suppose I'll come hurtling down

from heaven, handsome again. Let me fall

where no one will find me

so you can go on with your life –

a wedge of honeydew melon rocking on your plate.

Pretend it's a bad dream.

Wake up from it.

Wake up from it as I could not.

    

    Because Crossing With the Light was published in 1992, his poems represent emotions experienced nearly two decades ago. His frequent topics of race and sexuality are as relevant today as they were in the 1980s, yet the cultural connotations of many of his subjects have changed. To truly understand the dark, despairing tone of "Where The Boys Were," a reader must review the poem through a historical lens.

    In the cultural context of the late 1980s, AIDS was a frightful, mysterious, and deadly epidemic. This feeling of an unknown future is echoed throughout the poem. Okita continually refers to the "nightmare" or "bad dream" of "boys falling." AIDS terrorized many Americans in this time; methods of contracting the disease were vague, as each day, the numbers of those infected grew and grew. The image of falling from sky, or heaven, seems to symbolize an unnatural event. Just as these boys belonged in heaven, the speaker and many others are not ready to leave Earth; those who died "[weren't] done" with their lives yet. Like the charcoal sketch, these lives were taken prematurely. "There was color to be added" yet the men died too soon, leaving Earth with uncompleted lives, monotone and bleak. All the men the speaker has met have lost hope of life because of the killer. While the media continues to sugarcoat Bruce's condition, he marches steadily towards death. Even while the media downplays the horrors of the epidemic, men continued to die. The speaker mentions Jim, another man infected with AIDS. When infected, he imagines heaven more vividly; he realizes that death is approaching.

    The man holding his future urn is an especially powerful image. As he sits on the steps, he is holding something that he can contain. The urn is a tangible affirmation of his death. No one truly understands the mysterious illness, but the man realizes that the urn "will be [his] new home." Though the complete effects of AIDS were unclear back then, the man's fate is certain. He does not wish to remain alone in his next life; he feels lonely and isolated. Many of the men with AIDS felt ostracized. The general public feared contact; for what if they, too, became infected?

    Okita's four "titles" accurately sum up the different emotions felt during this time. It certainly was a nightmare for all. Humans were unable to stop and control the epidemic, just as they are powerless from changing the events in a frightening dream. The rapidly climbing infection and death rates were surreal; boys were falling everywhere. The media had significant influence over the general public's knowledge of AIDS. While officials remained vague on specific details, public theories began to originate. AIDS was initially known as "GRID" – gay related immune deficiency. The American public provoked itself into further fear and horror of this "gay cancer." Yet, as many were hysterical, others were calm. The Man who "chooses his funeral urn" is one who has come to accept his looming fate. His attitude is one of dejected acceptance. By the end of the 1980s, the AIDS epidemic became voiced more publicly. With acknowledgement from President Reagan, as well as a few notable celebrities, more support and activist groups developed. In this climate of fear and paranoia, many rose to fight back and speak up about the disease. Even if the speaker cannot "go on with [his] life", he urges others to "wake up." To stop this horrible nightmare from ruining more lives, he urges all to wake up and stop the bad dream. In a way, the poem ends on a hopeful note. Though the speaker cannot see a positive future for himself, he believes others will be able to stop the falling boys.

    This poem's emotions are especially heightened given the context of its publication. During these decades, AIDS was a relatively new disease with treatment that offered very vague and uncertain futures. It is important to consider this time of despair in America historically. Additionally, Okita could have written this poem from a personal experience. As an openly gay writer, he was most likely subject to much of the homophobic ideas that swirled around "GRID." While AIDS is still a significant issue, America today is no longer in a state of hysteria. Given the setting and personal context of the 1980s, the poem's hopelessness becomes much more raw, honest, and powerful.

 

The Nice Thing About Counting Stars

"In the hot summers of the 30's, we would

sit on the steps and sing for hours. We

even counted the stars in the sky and it

was always beautiful."

So my mother begins

writing her life down, Jackie Onassis

thinking in the car behind dark glasses.

She recalls the luxury

of growing up – she and her sisters

buying jelly bismarcks on Sundays

and eating them in the back seat

of their father's Packard

parked on the drive.

Pretending they were going

Somewhere, and they were.

Not knowing years later they would

be headed for just such an exotic place.

Somewhere far from Fresno, their white stone house

on F Street, the blackboard in the kitchen

where they learned math,

long division, remainders,

what is left

after you divide something.

"When Executive Order 9066 came telling

all Japanese-Americans to leave their

houses, we cleared out of Fresno real

fast. They gave us three days. I remember

carrying a washboard to the camp. I don't

know how it got in my hands. Someone must

have told me – Here, take this."

They were given three days to move

what had taken them years to acquire –

sewing machines, refrigerators, pianos, expensive fishing

rods from Italy. A war was on – Japs

had bombed Pearl Harbor.

Burmashave signs littered the highways:

SLAP

THE JAP

"Take only what you can carry."

My mother's family left the Packard

And with it left Sundays in the back seat.

Others waked away from acres of land,

Drugstores, photo albums.

I think of turtles.

How they carry their whole lives

on their backs. My neighbor Jimmi

told me one night how they

make turtle soup down south.

A huge sea turtle – take a sledge hammer

to the massive shell, wedge it open

with one simple, solid blow

till the turtle can feel

no home above him, till everything

is taken away

and there is nothing

he will carry away from this moment.

My parents had three days

to relocate.

"Take only what you can carry."

One simple, solid blow –

They felt no home above them.

"We were sent to Jerome, Arkansas.

Arriving there, I wondered how long

We would be fenced in."

The nice thing about counting stars is

you can do it just about anywhere.

Even in a relocation camp

miles from home, even in Jerome, Arkansas

where a barbed wire fence crisscrosses itself

making stars of its own – but nothing

worth counting, nothing worth singing to.

My father remembers only two things:

washing dishes in the mess hall each morning

beside George Kaminishi and

listening to Bing Crosby sing "White Christmas."

on the radio in the barracks late at night.

One morning, George looked up from a greasy skillet

at my dad and said Yosh, you're a happy-go-lucky guy.

What do you want to do with your life?

It was the first time he realized he had a life

to do things with. He was fifteen. He didn't know.

It was only later that Dad found out George

had colon cancer and had no life to do things with.

And when Bing sang "White Christmas" late at night

Dad could only think, He's not singing to me he's

singing to white people.

My mother meanwhile was in a different camp

and hadn't met my father. At night, she'd lie

in bed and think about the old family car

back in the driveway – were the windows smashed

and broken into, the thing driven away by thieves?

Or was the grass a foot tall now, erasing the

Goodyear tires that were so shiny and new?

There was a hole in the week where Sunday

used to be, and she wanted jelly bismarcks

more than ever.

"Somehow we adjusted. There were weekly

dances for the young. Dad sent away

for a huge rice paper umbrella of vivid colors,

and Peg and I hugged it during stormy

days."

Annotations

Jackie Onassis: Mrs. John F. Kennedy, First Lady of the 35^th President. Known as a fashion icon, especially with her large, round sunglasses.

Thinking in the car: this may be a reference to President Kennedy's assassination. After the shooting, Jackie was immediately pushed into the limousine by Secret Service agents.

Jelly Bismarck: type of pastry similar to a donut, filled with jam (jelly)

Packard: a "classic American car"

Annotations continued

Fresno, F Street:

F street was considered part of "Japantown", established by Japanese grape pickers in the early 20^th century.

Annotations continued

Executive Order 9066: The infamous order issued by FDR during WWII that forced thousands of Japanese Americans into internment camps. In this poem, the relative abruptness of the order is mentioned- Japanese were given extremely short notice to pack up their belongings and move to these camps.

Jermone, Arkansas: One such camp.

Japs: a racial epithet used to describe persons of Japanese descent

Pearl Harbor: the surprise attacks by the Japanese on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. This event spurred the creation of the Japanese internment camps.

Annotations continued

Burma-shave: A "brushless shaving cream" company, known for catchy, rhyming slogans. Examples include:

"If your hubby/ Trumps your ace/ Here's something/ That will/ Save his face/ Burma-Shave"

and

"Slap/ the Jap / with / Iron/ Scrap"

Annotations continued

Turtle: In Japanese culture, the turtle is a symbol of longevity and felicity

 

Bing Crosby: a popular actor and singer in the mid-20^th century, most noted for his song, "White Christmas" (referring to snow)

 

Goodyear tires: "World's largest tire company."

 

Rice paper umbrella:

A traditional Japanese umbrella, used for shade on sunny days. Made out of rice and bamboo.

Recitation

In Response to Executive Order 9066 :: All Americans of Japanese Descent Must Report to Relocation Centers

Dear Sirs: Of course I'll come. I've packed my galoshes and three packets of tomato seeds. Denise calls them love apples. My father says where we're going they won't grow. I am a fourteen-year-old girl with bad spelling and a messy room. If it helps any, I will tell you I have always felt funny using chopsticks and my favorite food is hot dogs. My best friend is a white girl named Denise- we look at boys together. She sat in front of me all through grade school because of our names: O'Connor, Ozawa. I know the back of Denise's head very well. I tell her she's going bald. She tells me I copy on tests. We're best friends. I saw Denise today in Geography class. She was sitting on the other side of the room. "You're trying to start a war," she said, "giving secrets away to the Enemy. Why can't you keep your big mouth shut?" I didn't know what to say. I gave her a packet of tomato seeds and asked her to plant them for me, told her when the first tomato ripened she'd miss me. Dwight Okita

 

Before:

    This poem is the reason why I chose Okita as my poet. I love the piece for its clarity and simplicity. Though Okita is largely a confessionalist poet, this poem is written from his mother's point of view. She was interned as a young teenager, abruptly leaving her home in Fresno. Her naïve voice lends the poem a sorrowful and dry tone. There is the beginning sarcasm, "of course I'll come," and the ending confusion, "I didn't know what to say." Okita does not rely on poetry devices to shape his poem; the true power comes from the story. It is moving, but not obscure in meaning. Because this poem almost reads as a story, a progression of events, I have chosen it for my recitation.

 

After:

    Our class recitations have made me realize how important tone is for an effective delivery. For "In Response to Executive Order 9066", tone is essential to convey the feelings of Okita's mother that are subtle on paper. There is a change in mood from the fourteen-year-old girl "with bad spelling and a messy room" to the one that "didn't know what to say." Oral reading of this poem can show the voice distinction between the speaker's assurances of her own personality and her confusion with Denise's attitude. Because the poem's visual appearance on a page is no longer relevant in a recitation, vocal cues and stresses lead the changes in direction. The audience cannot see the stanzas physically separated from one another, but listening to a pause between "Why can't you keep your big mouth shut?" and "I didn't know what to say" has an equal, if not more powerful, effect. After watching these deliveries I have found that it is the reciter's responsibility to interpret and deliver a proper tone, using the visual elements on paper as hints of the poem's emotion.