My poem FUKUSHIMA today with my Yuricane band. Toshiyuki Turner Tanahashi (bass), Hirokazu Jackson Suyama (drums) and Yuuichiro Ishii (guitar) at What The Dickens in Tokyo July 5, 2026.
FUKUSHIMA by Yuri Kageyama
Y’all, it’s a Meltdown nation Since Three-Eleven Covered in the fear Of unseen radiation But don’t you expect Any revolution All you will find Is fear and contamination.
Here in Fukushima It rhymes with Hiroshima Instead of a holler Hear just a whimper They say it is safe The kids like Chernobyl Are coming down sick With Thyroid cancer.
Fukushima Fukushima Fukushima
Y’all, it’s no hallucination The refugees’ life No compensation No resolution Just nuclear explosions Get your dosimeter Cesium in the water Lost Imagination
Here in Fukushima It rhymes with Hiroshima The radiated Brothers Faces are hidden Goggles and masks Like an astronaut From head to toe The Invisible workers
Tsunami Demolition God’s DeCreation Genetic Devastation Our next Generation. Here in Fukushima It rhymes with Hiroshima No-go zones forever The World must remember.
Fukushima Fukushima Fukushima
The band and friends. We did good. When people ask if I have friends, or something to that effect, I tell them I have a band.
My AP Story July 1, 2026 in which I interview Eiko Kadono, the author of “Kiki’s Delivery Service.”
Korochan and Jiji. Reminders my AP Stories go all over the place with one being the toy a 9-year-old always has at her DJ gigs (story below) and the other that cat companion of Kiki the witch, a character created by a 91-year-old writer (story above).
Always an honor, even if you just did your very small part, to be part of the Best of AP Honorable Mention awarded in February 2026, for this AP Story about an explosion at U.S. Steel.
My AP Story Jan. 2, 2026 about the emperor and his family greeting well-wishers at the palace for New Year’s.
AP Photo by Fatima Shbair.
I usually start the New Year by covering a countdown event for our roundup story. I send a bunch of material but, by the end of the global day, it becomes one line, if even that. It’s a great way to start out the new year as a reporter, a humbling but comforting reminder that we just do our jobs. I am a Contributor to this AP Story Jan. 1, 2026.
This haiku is about that everyday moment when you are waiting to cross a busy street, and you see a very old couple standing in front of you, and you happen to notice they are holding hands, clasping each other’s fingers, like they are holding on for life, or for eternal love. Like they’re on their first date, although they are old _ white hair, frail, pale skin, barely standing, leaning against each other. All you can feel is sheer envy: That they have whatever it is that they have, all the years together, and, most of all, they have each other.
Swimming or flying
Mourning alone will end soon
Love birds mate for life
If you are a bird watcher, even a casual amateurish one like me, you know many of them not only migrate in flocks, like a flight version of human society, but they are also almost always couples. If you ever see a bird alone, look around and find his/her partner nearby. I enjoy doing this. I find it consoling each time.
HOKUBEI MAINICHI the Japanese American newspaper where it all began
Amazing to chance upon the digital archives of Hokubei Mainichi, a true community newspaper, as all journalism should be, and found stories I did, notices about my poetry readings, the birth announcement of our son and a column the editor then Howard Imazeki gave me to muse on motherhood. And today I see that he continued to publish my stories sent as AP reports from Japan. That made me cry. Thanks to journalism.
My longtime poet friend Alan Ota found this poem of mine from some time back. He thinks it is moving and might use it in his next book. I didn’t even remember having written this poem. It sounds like something I would write. I still like this poem.
My poetry an honorable mention in “The Terrible Fives”
This isn’t coming out until November 2026, but I am thrilled to get an honorable mention in “The Terrible Fives,” the upcoming book by Ishmael Reed, my longtime mentor since my Berkeley days.
My teacher made this vase himself. The point of this ikebana is to have the elements cascade downward, and protrude forward, creating a flow of life in the leaves, stems and flowers that’s a statement, from top right to left downward, in a softly swinging angle.
Below is another, perhaps better, shot of the Ikebana, created May 13, 2026. And the link to My Ikenobo Ikebana No. 12 with a link to previous Ikebana that has more such links, all the way to My Ikenobo Ikebana No. 1 May 21, 2025. And so it’s been just about a year now.
at Senshin Obon in LA this year a very special lantern
IT IS OK a poem by Yuri Kageyama
it is OK
to idealize
he is now
an angel
or
at least that’s
what they say
he never laid eyes on another
he always brought home the pay check
he never broke anything
and he never snored
it is OK to believe
all those things
and think he was, will be
perfect
This piece came about as part of the Poetry Challenge, a group in Tokyo that shares work on a given theme. The theme was “Dreamtime.” I’m sharing it here because it turned out nicely, if I may say so, with the title “It Is OK.” Below is what our son Isaku did with the poem, using AI to make it into a song:
