New title for the anthology

The anthology edited by Ishmael Reed, award-winning novelist and poet, with dancer/violinist Carla Blank, has a new title:
"POW-WOW: 63 Writers Address the Fault Lines in the American Experience."
January 2009: Da Capo Press.
I'm in good company _ Langston Hughes, Toni Cade Bambara, Alejandro Murguía, Erskine Caldwell, Kevin Powell.
Pre-order from Amazon!

From Yuri To Yuri _ A Poem in Progress

From Yuri To Yuri
Japanese Womanhood Across Borders of Time
By Yuri Matsueda and Yuri Kageyama
2008 in Tokyo

(1)

20年後あるいは30年後かの自分と対峙し
瞳の深淵をそっと覗き見る
睫毛の長さ
目元の影
声の艶
足首の締まり
それらは注意深く観察される

わずかな欲望はざらついた嫉妬へ
嫉妬は称賛
安堵へ
その移ろいをゆっくりと舌先で転がす昼下がり
私たちは松檮を歩いていた


(2)

pale hands folded over silken robes
music tangled like wind among pine trees
she waits, waits, waits for her daimyo lover

i can’t love a man i can’t respect
i fall for men who’re no good for me
i won’t love a man who might destroy me

her breasts grow fuller with each breath
she knows he will return in the darkness
her tongue is dry and sallow

i can’t resist a man who means danger
his cocky sneer, his sword, his dreams,
his probing lips and fingertips


(3)

月に照らされ

家族を忘れ
あなたを忘れ
過去を忘れ
大気を切り抜け
時間を走り
窓はふさがれ
耳はふさがれ
体はしめられ
心翔る

自由である

夜間飛行


(4)

walking
the path of time of generations of memories of ignorance

all the forgotten women
all the forgotten lovers
all the forgotten babies

walking
past Shibuya cobblestones of footprints of dreams of death

fading love hotels
gleaming boutiques
salesmen passing tissue to no one

walking
faceless voices blend with sirens and cicadas

overheard giggles
sheer wisps of thoughts
too lazy to speak the truth or lies

at dusk


(5)

一本先へ
一本奥へ
円山町を背にして
蝉の声に誘われ
さまよう
女二人
不意に途切れた
鳴き声の間に
白い腹をみせた
亡骸をまたいで
羽を散らした体を尻目に
松涛求めて
喘ぎ歩くも
跡なくあてなく
日、翳る


(6)

dot and line, dot and line
like marching ants spilling
from score sheets to table to equator to nightmares
black notations of silent thoughts of music
muted ramblings of an obscure composer
puttering notes only he and i can hear
fragments of jazz rhythms
broken crazed despised

did you know Ingmar Bergman was terrified of death
but as he grew older, as he approached that dreadful moment,
he was no longer afraid

did you know life is forever
when death comes
there will be no life to feel

i was lost when i was your age
you will help me find myself
at your age
with this poem

Poetry and Percussion next month

Poster by Annette Dorfman
POETRY and PERCUSSION
BUNGA
SUNDAY Sept. 28 6:30 p.m.

Poet YURI KAGEYAMA and percussionist WINCHESTER NII TETE present “TALKING TAIKO,” a multicultural evening of the spoken word with music that challenges the boundaries of continents, genres and generations.

Fiction at Ben's Cafe in Tokyo

I'm going to the Fifth Sunday Fiction Series at Ben's Cafe in Takadanobaba, Tokyo.
Sunday, August 31, 5 PM
I will read my short story "Seeds of Betrayal," published in this 1995 anthology "On a Bed of Rice," edited by Geraldine Kudaka.
The featured reader will be Janice Young, author of the novel "Sweet Dauma: a Japan Satire." Also reading will be Japan Times writer and novelist Michael Hoffman.
The host is Hillel Wright, author of "Border Town."

Little YELLOW Slut

Reworked to add a new line: "Charlie Chan's Angel"

Little YELLOW Slut
By Yuri Kageyama

You know her:
That Little YELLOW Slut, proudly gleefully
YELLOW-ly hanging on Big Master's arm,
War bride, geisha,
GI's home away from home,
Whore for last samurai,
Hula dancer with seaweed hair,
Yoko Ohno,
Akihabara cafe maid,
Hi-Hi Puffy Ami/Yumi,
Kawaiiii like keitai,
Back-up dancer for Gwen Stefani,
Your real-life Second Life avatar
Eager to deliver your freakiest fetish fantasies,
Disco queen, skirt up the crotch,
Fish-net stockings, bow-legged, anorexic, raisin nipples, tip-toeing Roppongi on
Stiletto heels.

Yessu, i spikku ingrishhu, i raikku gaijeeen, they kiss you,
hold your hand, open doors for me,
open legs for you, giggling pidgin, covering mouth,
so happy to be
Little YELLOW Slut.

Everybody's seen her:
That Little YELLOW Slut, waiting at
Home, cooking rice, the Japanese
Condoleezza Rice,
Smelling of sushi,
Breath and vagina,
Fish and vinegar,
Fermented rice,
Honored to be
Cleaning lady,
Flight attendant for Singapore Airlines,
Charlie Chan's Angel,
Nurse maid, gardener, Japan-expert's wife,
Mochi manga face,
Yodeling minyo, growling enka,
Sex toy, slant-eyes closed, licking, tasting, swallowing STD semen,
Every drop.

Yessu, i wanna baby who looohkuh gaijeen, double-fold eye, translucent skin, international school PTA,
maybe grow up to be fashion model, even joshi-ana,
not-not-not happy to be
Little YELLOW Slut.

I recognize her:
That Little YELLOW Slut, rejecting
Japanese, rejected by Japanese,
Ashamed,
Empty inside,
They all look alike,
Faceless, hoping to forget, escape
To America,
Slant-eyed clitoris,
Adopted orphan,
Dream come true for pedophiles,
Serving sake, pouring tea, spilling honey,
Naturalized citizen,
Buying Gucci,
Docile doll,
Rag-doll, Miss Universe, manic harakiri depressive, rape victim, she is
You, she is me.

Hai, hai, eigo wakarimasen, worship Big Master for mind, matter, muscle, money, body size correlates to penis size,
waiting to be sexually harassed, so sorry, so many,
so sad to be
Little YELLOW Slut.

Amanojaku Taiko Concert

Fresh back from a trip to Brazil to celebrate the centenary of Japanese immigration to Brazil, Amanojaku gave two Tokyo concerts this week.
What's striking about their performance is the vision of leader Yoichi Watanabe that is underlined by his fantastic compositions.
Inspired by stark imagery and story-telling, from sword-flicking samurai to the eternal power of dashing waves, Watanabe's tunes never fail to deliver an exciting and articulate musical experience.
His taiko concerts aren't the clap-along feel-good affairs of showmanship that many associate these days with modern taiko.
They make deeper, sometimes painful statements about Watanabe's perceptions on life and art as defined through his compositions/choreography woven together like fabric.
He told the concert crowd about how he composed "Dotou."
He said he started out with a piece for the big drum, and then that evolved into a tune about the snarling waves.
While he was at a studio in a prefecture outside Tokyo to work out the composition, there was a thunderstorm.
There was so much rain the sewage gutter outside the studio began overflowing in torrents.
Thus was "Doutou" born.
Watanabe wrote "Kaiun" after his parents died, and the piece has elements of prayer and wishes for everyone's happiness.
The song has allusions to universal symbols of hard work and preserverance such as worksong chants, swaying of the body and rigorous repetitive beating that is almost excruciating.
But in a mysterious way, the song is also about deliverance from the madness of everyday survival.
It is a moving song about how a man is dealing with the sorrow of losing people he loves, the gratitude he feels toward his forebearers, and the total fear yet total courage artists feel in perpetually facing up to our inevitable deaths.

TALKING TAIKO

Poet YURI KAGEYAMA and percussionist WINCHESTER NII TETE present “TALKING TAIKO,” a multicultural evening of the spoken word with music that challenges the boundaries of continents, genres and generations.

Yuri Kageyama’s poetry and short fiction have appeared in many literary publications, including “Y’Bird,” “Greenfield Review,” "San Francisco Stories," "On a Bed of Rice," "Breaking Silence: an Anthology of Asian American Poets," "Other Side River," "Yellow Silk," "Stories We Hold Secret" and "MultiAmerica." She has read with Ishmael Reed, Shuntaro Tanikawa, Geraldine Kudaka, Victor Hernandez Cruz, Russel Baba, Seamus Heaney, Yumi Miyagishima and many other artists. Her short story “The Father and the Son” will be in a January 2009 anthology, “Pow-Wow: American Short Fiction from Then to Now.” She has a book of poems, “Peeling” (I. Reed Press). She is a magna cum laude graduate of Cornell University and holds an M.A. from the University of California, Berkeley.

Master percussionist Winchester Nii Tete hails from the honorable Addy-Amo-Boye families of drummers in Ghana. He has performed with the Ghana national troupe, Sachi Hayasaka, Yoshio Harada, Takasitar, Naoki Kubojima, Tsuyoshi Furuhashi and many other artists. His repertoire is expansive, including jazz, hip-hop, reggae, pop and world music. Besides playing original compositions with poetry, he will deliver a taste of his exuberant, refined and eclectic sound with guest musicians and his students. He is a brilliant young star who is certain to follow in the footsteps of his legendary uncles Obo Addy and Aja Addy in gaining international acclaim.

Winchester Nii Tete and Yuri Kageyama met in Tokyo last year and have been working on collaborative pieces. Director Yoshiaki Tago (“Believer,” “Worst Contact”) joins as another collaborator in filming “Talking Taiko.”

Sunday, September 28, 2008 6:30 p.m.
BUNGA (http://www.livebar-bunga.com/) (TEL: 03-3220-9355)
3-1-5 Amanuma Suginami Tokyo 167-0032
2500 yen admission (plus 500 yen drink).

Being Japanese: Kakijun, Enryo and Iki

KAKIJUN is something that could have significance only in Japan.
Kakijun refers to the rules on properly writing kanji characters _ specifically the order in which each stroke (traditionally rendered in paintbrush sumi-ink) must be written.
If you mess up the order, then it's wrong _ even if it looks exactly the same as if it had been written in the correct order.
Kakijun highlights the essential importance of process _ as opposed to results.
If it's not done the right way, it's wrong.
Japanese society emphasizes the zenlike spiritual _ the virtue of what is happening within the individual _ form defining act _ not just Western-style pragmatism of getting things done, making money, winning status.
In another sense, kakijun is about fixating on regulations for the sake of appearances, not the substance of the action.
It penalizes deviations.
It discourages creativity.
It rewards conformity.
Still, kakijun can be a beautiful concept.
No wonder calligraphy looks a lot like abstract Western art.
It is forceful.
It is evidence of how the artist's individuality is expressed in form.
It is evidence of how Japanese art is defined as the beauty of the process.
Japanese rules of behavior _ how to enter a door, how to bow, how to drink tea _ are like Dance.
How you do something _ even everyday things _ is part of the definition of that person's value as a human being to all Japanese.
Pretty deep.
ENRYO is another super-Japanese concept.
Taken the bad way (let's start with that first this time), it's phony because it means: yup, you really want that second serving of cake but you don't want to look greedy so you act like you don't want it and say no, thanks, all the while hoping the host will realize you're just saying that and deep inside you want the cake and so will offer it again, no no no I insist, at which point you get to "give in" and eat the cake without feeling like a pig.
This is enryo.
And it's an everyday practice in Japan, even today.
This works only if the other party knows you are doing enryo.
It has been known to happen that if the other party for whatever reason fails to catch on and goes along with the preliminary refusal a la enryo-style, and doesn't persist in offering the cake, the originator of enryo can get quite resentful _ about not getting that cake after all _ and accuse the other person of all kinds of inadequacies, including not being a proper Japanese _ so delicate is this give-and-take interaction of enryo.
Enryo assumes that everyone is in the know.
Enryo evolved out of an insular small-village mindset.
But enryo is also soulful _ caring about the other person so much you're giving that person the chance to take his or her offer back, in case that person can't really afford to offer you that extra piece of cake.
Enryo is about self-sacrifice.
Enryo is about modesty.
It's about not being a totally egotistical and everyone-out-for-their-own kind of society.
It's about quiet graceful self-demeaning appearances taking precedence over who gets what and big egos and individualism.
Many other cultures besides Japan actually have enryo.
Americans may be a minority in not being hip to enryo at all, and in assuming that no one will be crazy enough to say, "No," to a desirable offer. Hey, why not? That's what a normal American would think.
And, well, why not?
If you have to ask, then forget about it.
That's what Enryo is.
IKI also sounds crazy if you try to explain it to a hard-core pragmatist.
Iki means you do the most cool things where people can't possibly notice.
That's what makes it totally cool.
It's adoration of the less obvious, all the while hoping that the hidden wonders will somehow accidentally be noticed, making them even more superlative like a secret gift.
One good example of iki is a plain dark coat that's the impeccable statement of understatement, which has as lining this ostentatious and intricate fabric.
The outer may be indigo but the innards would be an elaborate red and gold Hokusai-like manga design.
This is no joke, and some Edo Period "haori" coats are just like that.
Or a woman's kimono would be subdued but have this special lining at the collar that's only showing in a tiny, tiny bit.
It defies logic, and that's why it's so iki.
The goal of a labor-intensive item is not to show off.
It's in and of itself precious _ although the argument can be made that iki is showing off of the ultimate, perhaps most perverse, kind.
Even among Japanese, iki is supposed to be localized _ very Tokyo _ and some say down-home Osaka people don't value iki.
Iki means you never ask how much something costs.
Iki people would mix-and-match expensive items with weeds picked up off the road _ that kind of thing.
Like kakijun and enryo, iki is at once perception-oriented and arbitrary.
It's all about what people think but so specific it doesn't make any sense when you stop to think about it.
For those who swear by it, there are no gray areas.
And it is a good way to separate true Japanese from posers.