Please come to my Book Party

BOOK PARTY:
A celebration of Music and Poetry upon the publication of
YURI KAGEYAMA's "The New and Selected Yuri: Writing From Peeling Till Now" from Ishmael Reed Publishing Co.
ERIC KAMAU GRAVATT, drummer for McCoy Tyner, Weather Report, Source Code, Charles Mingus, Stanley Clark, Wayne Shorter and many others.
ISAKU KAGEYAMA, drummer for Amanojaku, a Tokyo taiko group, Toshinori Kondo, fusion trio Hybrid Soul.
MAKOTO HORIUCHI guitar/musical director.
Special Guests ISHMAEL REED poet, TENNESSEE REED poet and HIROYUKI SHIDO bass.
At Yoshi's restaurant in San Francisco
1330 Fillmore Street (at Eddy)
TEL: 415-655-5600.
Tickets at Yoshi's Box Office: http://sfyoshis.inticketing.com/
$15 advance/$20 at door covers both sets 8 p.m. and 9:30 p.m.
An evening that challenges preconceptions, crosses borders without even thinking about it and ever so whimsically mixes into a ferocious blend a range of cultures, generations and genres coming together in a single courageous voice of Poetic Song.

I have a new book out: "The New and Selected Yuri"

I have a new book out: "The New and Selected Yuri _ Writing From Peeling till Now," Ishmael Reed Publishing Co. ( Amazon US site hardcover, Amazon Japan hardcover, Amazon US paperback, Japan paperback, ebooks coming soon.)
Reed's partner Carla Blank, author, performer, director, dance instructor, edited the book and led me every step of the way.
Reed, an award-winning poet, novelist, playwright and professor emeritus at the University of California Berkeley, where I was a student, published my first book of poems "Peeling" in 1988.
"The New and Selected Yuri" compiles the best of my writing _ poetry, fiction and essays _ from the 1970s, including my first poem to ever get published (also by Ishmael Reed) in iconic Berkeley literary magazine "Y'Bird" _ to today.
It is one of those strange happenings in life that has connected me to Reed over all these years.
I still don't understand it at all.
Reed not only published my new book. He also wrote the Foreword:

The Yuricane

They’ve called Yuri “cute” often during her life. She’s cute all right. Like a tornado is cute. Like a hurricane is cute. This Yuricane. I found that out when she was a student at the University of California at Berkeley in the 1970s. One of her poems about iconic white women became an underground hit on campus.
In 2009 the audience at New York City’s Bowery Poetry Club was also blown away by her poem, “Little YELLOW Slut,” a devastating look at the way Asian women are depicted in the media.
The New and Selected Yuri includes poems like this; the manner by which Japanese women are imprisoned behind a “Noh mask,” but Kageyama doesn’t leave it at that.
Unlike many American Gender First feminists,she is capable of understanding how men are also victims of outmoded customs, though they are not dismissed merely as “reproductive machines,” as one minister was caught saying in an unguarded moment. Women should be “quiet” and have bok choy ready when the men come home from
drinking with the boys.
It’s also the women, who bear the miscarriages, the abortions, the rapes, the beatings from a father, who, years later, can’t give an explanation for why he did it. In the United States, the white men who own the media and Hollywood blame the brutality against women on the poor and minority men. White middle class women, and their selected minority women, who want to remain on their payrolls in business,
politics and academia, have become surrogates in this effort.
Courageously, Yuri Kageyama debunks this myth and correctly calls out men of all backgrounds and classes as women abusers. The father who inflicts gratuitous punishment upon his daughter is a NASA scientist.
These poems are honest. Blunt. When she says that writing a poem is like taking “a bungee jump,” she means it.
Very few of the world poets have Yuri Kageyama’s range. Her poems critique Japanese as well as American society. The Chikan. The arrogance of the gaijin, who, even when guests in a country, insist that everybody be like them. Some are erotic. You might find allusions to Richard Wright, Michelangelo, John Coltrane. Music is not only entertainment but like something that one injects, something that invades the nervous system.
I asked writer Haki Madhubuti, what he meant by African Centrism. He said that it was based upon selecting the best of African traditions.
Some of Yuri Kageyama’s poems might be considered Nippon Centric. She wants to jettison those customs that oppress both men and women, especially the women, and keep those of value. The Kakijun, The Enryo and The Iki.
Ishmael Reed
Oakland, California
July 8, 2010

I hope I live up to those words.

Poetry and Music in Tokyo this Saturday

I'm used to talking to myself.
But please stop by for the Yuricane poetry and music SAT Sept. 4 at 7 p.m. (doors open 6:30 p.m.)
Gamuso in Asagaya, Tokyo.
FREE ADMISSION.

Excerpted from the foreword by Ishmael Reed for my upcoming book of poems and short stories, "The New and Selected Yuri: Writing From Peeling till Now":

The Yuricane (an excerpt)
By Ishmael Reed

They’ve called Yuri “cute” often during her life. She’s cute all right. Like a tornado is cute. Like a hurricane is cute. This Yuricane. I found that out when she was a student at the University of California at Berkeley.
One of her poems about iconic white women became an underground hit on campus.
The audience at the Bowery Poetry Club was also blown away by her poem, "Little YELLOW Slut," a devastating look at the way Asian women are depicted in the media ....

Little YELLOW Slut
By Yuri Kageyama
first published in KONCH MAGAZINE, 2009.

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.

wise words

DO YR ART D WAY U WANT
ANYWAY U WANT
ANY WANGOL U WANT
ITS UP TO U/WHAT WILL WORK
FOR U.

_ from "Catechism of d Neoamerican Hoodoo Church," a poem by Ishmael Reed.

KONCH Summer 2009

My poem "Little YELLOW Slut" is in KONCH Summer 2009 edition.

A stamp of approval from Ishmael Reed

Photo by Tennessee Reed.
In New York with Ishmael Reed, Carla Blank, Wajahat Ali, the actors of Ali's play "The Domestic Crusaders," and Rome Neal, artistic director of the Nuyorican Poets Cafe.

Our reading at the Bowery Poetry Club in New York is getting approval from the best _ poet and novelist Ishmael Reed officially declared "a genius" as a MacArthur Award recipient.
Please read his May 27, 2009 column in the San Francisco Chronicle called "City Brights," written by Bay Area luminaries.

YURI KAGEYAMA has a book of poems "Peeling" (I. Reed Press). Her works are in many literary anthologies _ "Y'Bird," "Pow Wow," "San Francisco Stories," "On a Bed of Rice," "Breaking Silence: an Anthology of Asian American Poets," "Greenfield Review," "Beyond Rice," "River Styx," "Other Side River," "Yellow Silk," "Stories We Hold Secret," "MultiAmerica," "Obras." She has read with Ishmael Reed, Shuntaro Tanikawa, Geraldine Kudaka, Victor Hernandez Cruz, Russel Baba, Seamus Heaney, Shozu Ben, Al Robles, Winchester Nii Tete, Keiji Kubo, Yumi Miyagishima. Her son Isaku Kageyama is a "taiko" drummer in Amanojaku in Tokyo. She is a magna cum laude graduate of Cornell University, and has an M.A. from the University of California, Berkeley.

ERIC KAMAU GRAVATT has played with Freddie Hubbard, Albert Ayler, The District of Columbia Youth Symphony, Roberta Flack, Horiuchi Makoto, Sonny Fortune, Jackie McLean, Charles Mingus, Donald Byrd, Carlos Valdez, Booker Irvin, Woody Shaw, Kenny Dorham, Blue Mitchell, Hank Mobley, Kikuchi Masabumi, The Milwaukee Symphony, Jimmy Heath, Donny Hathaway, Sam Rivers, Khalid Yasin, Andrew White, Tony Hymas, Paquito D'Rivera, George Mraz, Ravi Coltrane, Stanley Clarke, Pharoah Saunders, The McCoy Tyner Big Band, Gary Bartz, Bobby Hutcherson, James Carter, Terrance Blanchard, Wallace Roney, Donald Harrison, Charnett Moffett. He tours with his own band Source Code and with McCoy Tyner. Wayne Shorter calls him "The Weather Report drummer who was the all-around hippest one."

TERUYUKI and HARUNA KAWABATA are on their honeymoon. Their band Cigarette She Was performs at the numerous "live houses" in Tokyo. Their hippie-like music scene is part of what inspired YURI to write her story in "Pow-Wow" _ "The Father and the Son." They have been performing poetry together with other Tokyo musicians, including Winchester Nii Tete, a percussionist from Ghana, under YURI's project called The Tokyo Flower Children. Haruna fell in love with not only Teru but also the kpanlogo, a drum from Ghana, during college. The couple also work on films, CDs and posters, and are often featured in art festivals in Japan. Teru also makes cell-phone music downloads, and Haruna works at a major Japanese coffee-shop chain.

Reading at the Bowery Poetry Club

At the Bowery Poetry Club in New York, April 19, 2009.
Poetry by Yuri Kageyama.
Drums by Eric Kamau Gravatt.
Guitar by Teruyuki Kawabata.
Voice/percussions by Haruna Kawabata.
A celebration hosted by Ishmael Reed for the publication of "Pow-Wow: Charting the Fault Lines in the American Experience _ Short Fiction from Then to Now." Da Capo Press, 2009.

Little YELLOW Slut

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.

^___<

Loving Younger Men

Only the bodies of young men aroused her;
the pure innocence in their wide dark eyes,
the wild still animal strength in their muscles,
the smoothness of their skin, so shiny, stretched
out over their boy-like shoulders, flat stomachs,
abdominals rippling gently, their thick thighs
that could thrust forever into the night, their
soft moist lips, where their tonges, so delicious,
dwelt, which darted against, into her vagina,
making her moan with joy, forgetting everything,
which felt so strong against her own tongue at one
moment, yet another, seemed to melt like caramel
in the back of her throat,
their dry fingers, that touched her in the most
unexpected and expecting spots,
their penises, half-covered by their black curls,
seemed smaller, less developed, less threatening,
yet as their shoulders strangely widened
when they held her, their penises filled her,
pointed against her deepest uterine insides,
hurting her with a pleasurable pain, as though
she could sense with her hand, their movements
from outside her belly. Her father beat her as a girl.
She ran from him, crying, please don't hit me! please
don't hit me! No, rather she stood defiant, silent,
silent tears drunk down her chest, till he, in anger
or fear,
slapped her again and again, once so hard she was
swung across the room, once on her left ear so
that she could not hear for three weeks. She
frequented bars, searching for young men who desired
her. She sat alone drinking. She preferred
the pretty effeminate types _ perfectly featured,
a Michelangelo creation, island faces with coral eyes,
faces of unknown tribal child-princes. To escape
her family, she eloped at sixteen, with an alchoholic.
who tortured her every night, binding her with ropes,
sticking his penis into her mouth until she choked,
hitting her face into bruises, kicking her in
the stomach, aborting her child, his child.
The young boys' heads, she would hold, after orgasm,
rocking them in her arms. She would kiss the side of their
tanned necks, breathe in the ocean scent of their hair,
lick their ear lobes and inside their ears. When they
fell asleep, sprawled like a puppy upon her sheets,
their mouths open, she would lie awake watching,
watching, watching, admiring their bodies, how so
aesthetically formed, balanced, textured. What
she enjoyed the most was their fondling her breasts,
suckling, massaging the flesh, flicking the tongue
against the nipple, biting, sucking till her nipples
were red-hot for days. She could come just by this,
without penetration.
When she is alone, she cries. In the dark, she reaches
upwards, into the air, grabbing nothing.

Eric Kamau Gravatt

At the Bowery Poetry Club in New York SUN April 19, in celebration of "Pow-Wow: Charting the Fault Lines of the American Experience _ Short Fiction from Then to Now," an anthology compiled and edited by ISHMAEL REED with CARLA BLANK,
YURI KAGEYAMA reads with ERIC KAMAU GRAVATT, TERUYUKI KAWABATA and HARUNA KAWABATA.

YURI KAGEYAMA has a book of poems "Peeling" (I. Reed Press). Her works are in many literary anthologies _ "Y'Bird," "Pow Wow," "San Francisco Stories," "On a Bed of Rice," "Breaking Silence: an Anthology of Asian American Poets," "Greenfield Review," "Beyond Rice," "River Styx," "Other Side River," "Yellow Silk," "Stories We Hold Secret," "MultiAmerica," "Obras." She has read with Ishmael Reed, Shuntaro Tanikawa, Geraldine Kudaka, Victor Hernandez Cruz, Russel Baba, Seamus Heaney, Shozu Ben, Al Robles, Winchester Nii Tete, Keiji Kubo, Yumi Miyagishima. Her son Isaku Kageyama is a "taiko" drummer in Amanojaku in Tokyo. She is a magna cum laude graduate of Cornell University, and has an M.A. from the University of California, Berkeley.

ERIC KAMAU GRAVATT has played with Freddie Hubbard, Albert Ayler, The District of Columbia Youth Symphony, Roberta Flack, Horiuchi Makoto, Sonny Fortune, Jackie McLean, Charles Mingus, Donald Byrd, Carlos Valdez, Booker Irvin, Woody Shaw, Kenny Dorham, Blue Mitchell, Hank Mobley, Kikuchi Masabumi, The Milwaukee Symphony, Jimmy Heath, Donny Hathaway, Sam Rivers, Khalid Yasin, Andrew White, Tony Hymas, Paquito D'Rivera, George Mraz, Ravi Coltrane, Stanley Clarke, Pharoah Saunders, The McCoy Tyner Big Band, Gary Bartz, Bobby Hutcherson, James Carter, Terrance Blanchard, Wallace Roney, Donald Harrison, Charnett Moffett. He tours with his own band Source Code and with McCoy Tyner. Wayne Shorter calls him "The Weather Report drummer who was the all-around hippest one."

TERUYUKI and HARUNA KAWABATA are on their honeymoon. Their band Cigarette She Was performs at the numerous "live houses" in Tokyo. Their hippie-like music scene is part of what inspired YURI to write her story in "Pow-Wow" _ "The Father and the Son." They have been performing poetry together with other Tokyo musicians, including Winchester Nii Tete, a percussionist from Ghana, under YURI's project called The Tokyo Flower Children. Haruna fell in love with not only Teru but also the kpanlogo, a drum from Ghana, during college. The couple also work on films, CDs and posters, and are often featured in art festivals in Japan. Teru also makes cell-phone music downloads, and Haruna works at a major Japanese coffee-shop chain.

Reviews on Pow-Wow

My short story "The Father and the Son" is among the works in this book.
(Updated with more reviews)

Publishers Weekly says: "Reed’s selections will draw readers into American cities, suburbs, prairies and mountains with vivid, precise, at times documentary description and bold, personal questions of American identity and purpose."

David Ulin of the Los Angeles Times says in his review that Pow-Wow is "big, diverse, messy, all over the place _ just like American literature itself."

A review from INFODAD.COM:
"This is not a book for those seeking uplift – although a close reading of its Contributors section indicates that there are more positive things in America than these individual writers choose to observe."
To which Ishmael Reed comments:
"Thanks. The title of my next anthology will be 'Don't Worry, Be Happy.' "

The Buffalo News makes the book its March editor's pick. "I don’t think there’s been anyone remotely like him as an anthologist," Jeff Simon writes of Reed. "It’s there, it seems to me, that his service to literature has been irreplaceable."

Alan Caruba includes it in his March picks, describing the book this way: "A multicultural anthology, it includes a diverse group of writers sharing stories that ultimately transcend race, religions, gender and class."

In a review in Library Journal, Gene Shaw highly recommends the book. "The United States of the 21st Century is an ocean of stories and peoples, made up of a variety of races, religions, classes, genders, languages, cultures and sexual preferences," he comments.

"Booklist," published by the American Library Association says the writers in the book address "what makes American life so vital and contradictory, so cruel and so cherished." Donna Seaman says Reed and Blank have picked "molten and magical tales that dramatically explore the consequences of our attitudes toward race, ethnicity, gender, class, and sexuality."

And this review accuses the book of misplaced anger and inadequate quality control.
And this is Ishmael Reed's comment on that:
"Your reviewer not only misrepresents my anthology,but Affirmative Action as well. According to the U.S.Department of Labor, Affirmative Action benefits whites the most. The guy is a literary shock jock."

And this from January Magazine: "Pow Wow is an important book."

POW-WOW: Charting the Fault Lines in the American Experience _ Short Fiction From Then to Now, edited by Ishmael Reed with Carla Blank. Da Capo Press, January 2009.

Company You Keep

"POW WOW _ Charting the Fault Lines in the American Experience _ Short Fiction From Then to Now," edited by Ishmael Reed with Carla Blank, (cover design by Ann Weinstock) just came out, gathering works from the likes of (as photographed clockwise from top left): Ntozake Shange, Alejandro Murguia, Benjamin Franklikn and Gertrude Stein.
Works are in alphabetical order and so my short story "The Father and the Son" follows "Sweat" by Zora Neale Hurston, and comes right before "Moses Mama" by William Melvin Kelley _ some exalted company I keep.
Among others in the book: Langston Hughes, Al Young, Russell Banks, John A. Williams, Grace Paley, Mark Twain, Chester Himes.
From the cover:
"Celebrated novelist, poet and MacArthur Fellow Ishmael Reed follows his groundbreaking poetry anthology FROM TOTEMS TO HIP-HOP with a provocative survey of American short fiction .... By presenting many different facets of the American experience, these stories challenge official history, shatter accepted myths and provide necessary alternatives to mainstream notions of personal and national identity."
My story is about death, motherhood, identity, music, love.
In the Foreword, Ishmael Reed says my story exposes the stupidity and cruelty of the patriarchal family.
That, too!

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!

Poet Plays Piano

Ishamel Reed, poet, essayist and scholar that many of us knew was a genius before the MacArthur Foundation made it official, plays piano on this CD with the same forthright finality of his writing.
Other members of the Ishmael Reed Quintet are David Murray on saxophone, Roger Glenn on flute, Carla Blank on violin and Chris Planas on guitar.
Murray and Glenn are famous as musicians.
Planas, I found out, is also a veteran musician.
But it's hearing Reed explore a new voice as a musician that's so endearing, moving and refreshing.
I mean, why not?
Carla, Ishmael's wife, is also better known as a dancer, but she's gone back to playing the instrument she studied in the past.
This is not to say the music isn't first-rate.
It holds up to all that's out there by people who play music and don't dance or speak poetry.
It is Music that cuts through all the Noise (music making money, music on the charts, music that says nothing) to transport the listener to that special kind of space where people play/speak freely with just the power of intelligence and insight.

PS
On another note, poetry and piano met in Tokyo when Eddie Palmieri took the stage.
My son/drummer Isaku, his percussionist friend Winchester Nii Tete (playing MON Sept. 3 at Shinjuku Pit Inn) and I sat right in front.
And I must say I literally saw colors jump out of that grand piano _ warm yellow like fireflies, sparkling crystal like pink stars and a collage of hues like a swirling rainbow.
Sorry about all the cliches, but it's true what they say about how sounds have colors.
(Please go on Isaku's blog to see video footage.
But you probably can't see the colors on YouTube video. Something that perhaps come close:
Close your eyes and see Piet Mondrian.)

Thank God for all the poets and pianists of the world.

I am a Poet

Common widsom is: Fiction and journalism don't mix. A reporter getting carried away with make-believe while on the job will end up in a lot of trouble.
I have always kept that side of me that is a poet separate from my work.
Poetry is so private and touches that deep core inside of you that's nowhere objective enough to be acknowledged by someone who is a dedicated reporter.
My first poem to get published (and that was some time back when I was still a graduate student at the University of California, Berkeley) was a totally politically incorrect piece titled "Big White Bitch."
A couple of my other poems:

Loving Younger Men

Only the bodies of young men aroused her;
the pure innocence in their wide dark eyes,
the wild still animal strength in their muscles,
the smoothness of their skin, so shiny, stretched
out over their boy-like shoulders, flat stomachs,
abdominals rippling gently, their thick thighs
that could thrust forever into the night, their
soft moist lips, where their tonges, so delicious,
dwelt, which darted against, into her vagina,
making her moan with joy, forgetting everything,
which felt so strong against her own tongue at one
moment, yet another, seemed to melt like caramel
in the back of her throat,
their dry fingers, that touched her in the most
unexpected and expecting spots,
their penises, half-covered by their black curls,
seemed smaller, less developed, less threatening,
yet as their shoulders strangely widened
when they held her, their penises filled her,
pointed against her deepest uterine insides,
hurting her with a pleasurable pain, as though
she could sense with her hand, their movements
from outside her belly. Her father beat her as a girl.
She ran from him, crying, please don't hit me! please
don't hit me! No, rather she stood defiant, silent,
silent tears drunk down her chest, till he, in anger
or fear,
slapped her again and again, once so hard she was
swung across the room, once on her left ear so
that she could not hear for three weeks. She
frequented bars, searching for young men who desired
her. She sat alone drinking. She preferred
the pretty effeminate types _ perfectly featured,
a Michelangelo creation, island faces with coral eyes,
faces of unknown tribal child-princes. To escape
her family, she eloped at sixteen, with an alchoholic.
who tortured her every night, binding her with ropes,
sticking his penis into her mouth until she choked,
hitting her face into bruises, kicking her in
the stomach, aborting her child, his child.
The young boys' heads, she would hold, after orgasm,
rocking them in her arms. She would kiss the side of their
tanned necks, breathe in the ocean scent of their hair,
lick their ear lobes and inside their ears. When they
fell asleep, sprawled like a puppy upon her sheets,
their mouths open, she would lie awake watching,
watching, watching, admiring their bodies, how so
aesthetically formed, balanced, textured. What
she enjoyed the most was their fondling her breasts,
suckling, massaging the flesh, flicking the tongue
against the nipple, biting, sucking till her nipples
were red-hot for days. She could come just by this,
without penetration.
When she is alone, she cries. In the dark, she reaches
upwards, into the air, grabbing nothing.

Cooking Poem

sizzling chopped garlic
minced ginger
nearly cut bok choy
shrieking sesame oil
a giant spoon
tosses
scraping the wok
his arm from behind hugs her stomach
he kisses her ear
"how's your day?"
the shoyu turns greens into black
he tells her the latest occurrences
the spoon bangs
the bok choy
gnarled and wilted
"dinner is ready"
steam from the dish
reaches the ceiling

My book of poems, "Peeling," can be ordered, by the way, at amazon.com or from I. Reed Books in Oakland:

http://www.ishmaelreedpub.com/

and from me in Tokyo:

c/o The AP
Shiodome Media Tower 7th Floor
1-7-1 Higashi Shimbashi
Minato-ku Tokyo
Japan

Japanese poet Shuntaro Tanikawa gave me some nice words to put on the backcover. He says my poetry is seeing "through the anguished eyes of a half-breed the boundless universe in everyday life."

Poet, essayist and novelist Ishmael Reed, who published my book, was a literature professor at UC Berkeley when I met him.
He has written wonderfully delicious books like "Mumbo Jumbo" and "Yellow Back Radio Broke Down." He is now retired from the university but busy as ever writing.
He recently won the so-called "genius award" MacArthur Fellowship.
He came to Tokyo to read his poetry with musicians at the Blue Note jazz club. A CD version of the performance "Conjure Bad Mouth" made No. 4 on the Village Voice's Jazz Vocal list.

http://www.dailyhome.com/entertainment/2003/as-music-0904-0-3i03q3059.htm

The bottom line is: Poetry is everywhere, if we stop to listen.
What makes life worth living are the poetic moments.
The infinite color of the sky, the rattle of the Tokyo commuter train, the way love hurts in your chest, even the cheap bounce of singsong words on a billboard.