Trailer for our movie in the works "Talking Taiko"

Trailer of a work in progress "Talking Taiko," a movie by director Yoshiaki Tago, starring poet Yuri Kageyama and percussionist Winchester Nii Tete with Yumi Miyagisihima on violin, Keiji Kubo on didgeridoo, Isaku Kageyama on taiko drums and the other artists and poetry-lovers of Tokyo. April 2009.

Poetry on Noh Stage

Photos by Ryan Bruss.
Potrait with Yumi Miyagishima and Winchester Nii Tete.
Kuraki Noh in Yokohama Dec. 6, 2008.

with Yumi Miyagishima on violin

More Talking Taiko

Photos by Takashi Itoh.

SUN SEPT. 28

Sunday, September 28, 2008 6:30 p.m.
BUNGA a few minutes walk from Ogikubo Station on the Chuo Line. (TEL: 03-3220-9355)
3-1-5 Amanuma Suginami Tokyo 167-0032
2500 yen admission (plus 500 yen drink).

YURI KAGEYAMA’s works have appeared in “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," "MultiAmerica," and other publications. 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, “POWWOW: 63 Writers Address the Fault Lines in the American Experience.” 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 musician MASATO SUWA. 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.

Director YOSHIAKI TAGO (“Believer,” “Worst Contact”) joins in filming “Talking Taiko.” Violinist YUMI MIYAGISHIMA also appears as a special guest.

To an Ex-Lover

Photo by KAZU NISHIO.
Violinist YUMI MIYAGISHIMA and Poet YURI KAGEYAMA at What The Dickens in Tokyo, SUN Sept. 7, 2008.
The poem is part of the program at "TALKING TAIKO," an evening of multicultural poetry and music with master percussionist WINCHESTER NII TETE at BUNGA 6:30 p.m. SUN Sept. 28.

TO AN EX-LOVER
First published in Oakland Tribune; one of the poems in "Peeling," by Yuri Kageyama.

You could only sleep, turned away. EVERY NIGHT, HIS BICEPS PILLOW MY HEAD.

You told me that she was a hard act to follow, being the daughter of your parents' friends. Before your parents came over, you hid my things in the closet.

My friends were too strange, you used to complain. That I stayed up till six in the morning, while you slept, and slept, while you worked, and was never hungry the same time you were. WHEREAS, AFTER NIGHT-LONG DISCUSSIONS, HE TAKES ME FOR DAWN-LIT SNEAKERED STROLLS ALONG THE BEACH.

I let dust collect on the kitchen table, left things here and there, like animal droppings, cluttering your cleanliness.

You felt sorry for me. You paid my bills, got me health insurance, provided me with gas cards and made me laugh with John Wayne imitations. Because I always sat pensive, with a sad distressed lonely look. Even now, you tell me I'm a zombie. HE LAUGHS THAT I'M ALMOST AS CRAZY AS HE IS HIMSELF.

You'd watched how your older brothers had hurt your parents, by becoming a musician, trying dope, dating Chinese, so you'd vowed to a way of spineless kindness, obsessed with moderation, avoiding conflict till you'd, at times, crunch onto the floor, holding in the tumor of self-denial within your brain.

WE WALK TOGETHER, GIGGLING IN J-TOWN, ARM IN ARM, BECAUSE THE "COMMUNITY" IS SO LUDICROUS SOMETIMES. While you told me, never to mention your name in J-town again. For, deserted in insecurity, I used to sit, gulping down bourbon bitterness, telling the blues, how I loved you and you didn't love me.

You loved me by fixing the car. You loved me by criticizing how I didn't dress San Francisco. You loved me by watching "Starsky and Hutch," sipping soda, after an eight-to-three-thirty school-teaching day. You loved me by telling me I could do whatever I wanted; you had no right to restrict my freedom. So I went discoing, while you visited your parents for the weekend. HE WANTS TO BE WITH ME. HE JUST TELLS ME, "DON'T FUCK AROUND."

I still don't smoke in front of you.

After I moved out and out of your life, you bought me sweetheart roses that never opened in the water. HE SURPRISES ME WITH AN ORCHID CORSAGE THAT BLOSSOMS WHITE-PURPLE WITH THE PRIDE IN THE LOVE WE FEEL.

You played the trumpet alone in the attic.

When I touched you, my fingers drained your energy. HE KISSES ME ON THE MUNI BUS.

You didn't know why I cried when you stated matter-of-factly, it took no talent to write poetry. You grin cynically over coffee at a shopping center, that now you never want a woman who's into art. You keep on telling me that you've seen the light; you want to get married within a year, and you're searching hard.

You faithfully attended family gatherings for Mother's Day, Father's Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's, Easter, piano and dance recitals, countless birthdays, and brought back roast turkey, potato salad, sushi and cake.

WE GO LISTEN TO JULIAN PRIESTER OR KEHVAN-LENNON-ONAJE, SEE ZATOICHI AND ITALIAN FILMS, DANCE TO VIVA BRAZIL ON LOMBARD STREET OR CHAKA KHAN IN THE DIMNESS OF HIS ROOM.

You said you loved me because I cooked relatively well and I had sweet mannerisms. I DON'T BOTHER ASKING FOR HIS REASONS.

You explained to me that I was not the type of woman you wanted for a wife. We were incompatible, despite our two years together. When you finally proposed, with tickets to Hawaii _ you realized that to take this plaything out of its glass case on the mantle, at your own leisure, could add excitement to your life _ when you finally declared your love, I had aborted mine long ago. HE SMILES TO ME, LET'S GET MARRIED TOMORROW; I REPLY, OKAY, LET'S.

HE THANKS ME FOR MY LOVE, FOR BEING AROUND.

HE NEVER TURNS AWAY, EVEN IN HIS SLEEP.

Photos by Kabe Chushin 8

Photos by Kabe Chushin 2

Photos by Kabe Chushin

KABE-CHUSHIN took these photos from the June 8, 2008 TOKYO FLOWER CHILDREN reading at The Pink Cow.
Violinist Yumi Miyagaishima and me doing "People Who Know Pain."

Ben's Cafe SUN June 29 & SUN Nov. 30

Winchester Nii Tete, Yumi Miyagishima and I are going to the reading at Ben's Cafe in Takadanobaba Sunday, June 29, 7 p.m.
They both played in our TOKYO FLOWER CHILDREN reading the other day at the Pink Cow.
But we will be doing new material.
So please come if you're in town and have time.
Ben's Cafe readings take place only when there's a fifth Sunday in a month.
They are usually devoted to prose. But on June 29 _ anything goes!
Looking way ahead, I am also on schedule to read _ prose, this time _ on another fifth Sunday, Nov. 30.

People Who Know Pain

Reading with violinist Yumi Miyagishima at What the Dickens in Tokyo.
The Japanese use the expression "hitono itami wo wakaru/shiru" often, which means "knowing people's pain."
It's part of being a conformist society that the quality of being able to understand how others feel is valued.
But often this becomes another way of making people feel small and unaccepted because it's a way to define what's correct/not correct in a very narrow way.
I wrote this thinking partly about that, but also about the poem by Kenji Miyazawa about that character whom no one would see as a hero _ in Japan or the U.S. _ who is never after societal recognition, carrying on always _ rain or shine _ but the way Miyazawa put it in those memorable first lines: "undefeated neither by rain nor wind ..." Miyazawa is one of Japan's biggest literery figures. But as with many works in Japanese, English translations don't/can't do justice to his greatness.

People Who Know Pain

The World is divided bet-
Ween two kinds of People
The Winners and the Losers
The Takers and the Givers
The Famous and the Forgotten
The Loved and the Unloved _
Those who don't care and

People who know Pain
People who know Pain

when your tongue rolls, the
tips of my nipples, piercing
knife of betrayal

Vincent Van Gogh
John Coltrane
Garcia Marquez
Toulouse Lautrec
Billie Holliday
Richard Wright
Kenji Miyazawa

People who know Pain
People who know Pain

baby foxes dance,
leaving paw marks in the snow,
fairy tale of joy

Hermit, victim,
Outcast, untouched,
Untouchable
They travel faceless
Shadows on the subway
Mute, unconnected,
Unknowing of their own Pain

People who know Pain
People who know Pain

bitter memories grow
a cancer pomegranate
bleeding and rotting

I'd rather shelter that Pain alone
A powerless nobody,
Ashamed, shunned,
Stench of insignificance,
Laughing the idiot's laugh,
Running forgotten errands,
Dying before living like other

People who know Pain
People who know Pain

a zillion light years
the planet pulsates timeless
soundless universe

I'd never be that superior someone who
Conquers, fornicates, lynches,
Deposits paychecks, plans careers,
Forms opinions, writes reviews,
Weighs pros and cons, wins awards,
Attends receptions, discriminates,
Never knowing, shrugging off, how painful

People's Pain can be
People's Pain can be

People Who Know Pain

Recorded with Yumi Miyagishima on violin at Music Man studio in Tokyo, May 24, 2008.
Part of the TOKYO FLOWER CHILDREN poetry readings with music.
Yumi Miyagishima, or Shima, is one of my favorite Tokyo musicians and one of my favorite people.
I wrote this poem inspired by the kind of things she talks about because she is so filled with a free spirit, the sense of justice, the love for music _ and a total disregard for practicality, status, "common sense" and material wealth that makes her really delightful.
It is difficult living in this vicious, greedy and insane world that Tokyo has become _ especially for a Japanese woman.
Tokyo on the surface looks like any big modern city.
You'd think women will get equal treament.
Think again.
Women are being treated like second, third, class citizens, and live and work fighting for their jobs, safety, self-respect, right to be creative as though this is right in the Third World.
It makes it even sadder that all women like Shima want is genuine love.
And they must seek it from men, the very pepetrators, for the most part, of the discrimination, cruelty and degradation that hurt and brutalize women.
Women who want nothing more than the fulfillment of their simple dreams are vulnerable.
But Shima grows stronger day by day, year by year.
Here she is, still playing music in Tokyo, and she even has a nice boyfriend:

People Who Know Pain

The World is divided bet-
Ween two kinds of People
The Winners and the Losers
The Takers and the Givers
The Famous and the Forgotten
The Loved and the Unloved _
Those who don't care and

People who know Pain
People who know Pain

when your tongue rolls, the
tips of my nipples, piercing
knife of betrayal

Vincent Van Gogh
John Coltrane
Garcia Marquez
Toulouse Lautrec
Billie Holliday
Richard Wright
Kenji Miyazawa

People who know Pain
People who know Pain

baby foxes dance,
leaving paw marks in the snow,
fairy tale of joy

Hermit, victim,
Outcast, untouched,
Untouchable
They travel faceless
Shadows on the subway
Mute, unconnected,
Unknowing of their own Pain

People who know Pain
People who know Pain

bitter memories grow
a cancer pomegranate
bleeding and rotting

I'd rather shelter that Pain alone
A powerless nobody,
Ashamed, shunned,
Stench of insignificance,
Laughing the idiot's laugh,
Running forgotten errands,
Dying before living like other

People who know Pain
People who know Pain

a zillion light years
the planet pulsates timeless
soundless universe

I'd never be that superior someone who
Conquers, fornicates, lynches,
Deposits paychecks, plans careers,
Forms opinions, writes reviews,
Weighs pros and cons, wins awards,
Attends receptions, discriminates,
Never knowing, shrugging off, how painful

People's Pain can be
People's Pain can be

Shima 3

Another photo.

Shima 2

More from Christmas 2007.

Violinist Yumi Miyagishima (Shima)

This is a bit of a late entry but I spent Christmas at a small pub in Mitaka, where Shima played violin with a singer, pianist, bassist, guitarist and percussionist.
Tokyo is a haven/heaven for young musicians.
Instead of parties, people get together to listen to music for their souls' "iyashi." (The repertoire that night was a collage of sing/clap-alongs _ "Jingle Bells," "Sunny," Japanese pop, etc.)
Shima has always said she wants to play music.
Knowing What you Want is important in Life.
And never giving up/never compromising: It's easier said than done.
Although we may never achieve the heights of our craft we see as Ideal, we can keep going, day by day, (staying True to What We have Decided is our Life) and we go listen to Music in Mitaka to gain courage/strength/purity to go on for the next day.

Shima's violin

Shima (short for Yumi Miyagishima) already knows what life is all about: She was born to play the violin. She knows this. That discovery, that conviction, that vision. When she plays _ sometimes in a deafening cavernous live-house, filled with throat-scratching smoke mixing with the laughter of other young people like her, dancing, talking, being themselves; sometimes in an organic-food restaurant, wafting faraway sounds like the harmonium and the Chilean flute and the smell of curry and memories of hippie dreams from the 60s_ her violin wails with the determined cries of a thousand women, all choosing to live for what they believe in, taking a stand. Bring out the violins _ people don't say that for no reason. The weeping violin makes me feel all the love I have for her, and for Women Artists, that I have to fight to hold back my tears. When I tell her this, she laughs and suggests humbly her playing may be so sad? Watching you brings me only joy and pride. So many people take the easy way out _ get a job, get married, look for money, seek status. But you stand. And play the violin. Because that's what you were born on earth to do. She told me once: "Today was a good day. I got up, I had a nice brunch, and I played the violin." She is also very wise. I ask her, worried: "What's going to happen when we just grow older and older?" "Don't worry about it. You just enter a different stage in life," is her reply, delivered as a fact, in her trademark carefree, free-spirit, oh, so spiritual shrug. And I believe her.