My father died in his 70s, a big man with big ambitions, prone to cruelty and violence but just as quick with his brilliance, generosity and humor. He calmed down a bit with age. And it was natural he was far more loved by his grandchildren, who found him just hilarious, than by his daughters, who had found him oppressive. His desk upstairs had to be cleaned out after he died. My mother found bags of treats like nuts and kakinotane he was secretly eating, because his doctors had put him on a strict diet for his heart condition. She also found toy magic tricks he had also bought secretly and had been practicing to impress his grandchildren. They adored him, played games, ran around outside with him, going fishing or going on goofy rides at a tiny park. They would laugh and laugh with this old roly-poly man, who was really just one of them, never mind he was a former NASA engineer and university professor. My mother used to say my father always acted as though he couldn’t care less if his grandchildren visited or not. She wondered why he would say such an obviously untruthful thing. That was my father, too proud and too big and strong to admit to any weakness, like missing his grandchildren. There is nothing as heartbreaking as love because even love must come to an end with death. But love that can’t be expressed openly, and must be stashed away like magic tricks in the drawer of a desk. I don’t know what to call such love. But it is love.
Funny how the most unpoetic of activities can become all of a sudden emotional. That, to me, is a haiku moment. And I tried to capture that, as well as honor and express my gratitude for the long years of working with this colleague. I know I will think about him, now and then, like today. Feb. 9,2023.
My AP Story March 3, 2022 on the verdict for Greg Kelly, cleared on all counts except for charges in one of the eight contested years. He gets to go home because his sentence was suspended. The defense is appealing, asserting complete innocence.
My AP Story March 10, 2022 on the U.S. government seeking the two Americans in prison in Carlos Ghosn’s escape be allowed to serve the rest of their time in the U.S.
THE VERY SPECIAL DAY is also a film by stop motion artist HAYATTO (August 2019). PLEASE WATCH FOR SCREENINGS.
The trailer:
A birthday is very special for any little boy. And a little boy is very special for any parent. This book is an everyday but very special story about the trials and joys of growing up in an imperfect world. THE VERY SPECIAL DAY by Yuri Kageyama (first published in KONCH, Ishmael Reed Publishing Co., 2013).
A TOKYO FLOWER CHILDREN 2016 publication picture book, with Illustrations by Munenori Tamagawa, Book design by Fengshui Iwazaki.
A story about how a defiant young woman tries to make a birthday a very special day for her child all by herself. A story about how discrimination begins in the home, and how the fight against discrimination also begins in the home. A story about ice cream at a birthday party and French Fries at the aquarium. A story about how “they didn’t like us because we were Japanese American, and not Japanese.” A story about how stars can be that cure-all ideal but no-cost spiritual present. A story that’s a bit sentimental but honorable and true, written for all the children in the world. May they stay safe, may they enjoy peace, may they find love and may they know who they really are.
Reading THE VERY SPECIAL DAY at Inokashira Koen Tokyo SUN. Oct. 23, 2016. Photo by Junji Kurokawa.
OUR READING OF THE VERY SPECIAL DAY at Inokashira Koen, Tokyo, SUN Oct. 23, 2016. Featuring Live Painting by Munenori Tamagawa, the illustrator of the book. Left to Right: Yuri Kageyama (writer and storyteller), Hiroshi Tokieda (bass), Munenori Tamagawa (visual artist), Ryan Carter (guitar) and Kouzan Kikuchi (shakuhachi). PHOTOS by Junji Kurokawa.
Our Reading of THE VERY SPECIAL DAY at Inokashira Koen SUN Oct. 23, 2016. Photo by Junji Kurokawa.
Our Reading of THE VERY SPECIAL DAY at Inokashira Koen SUN Oct. 23, 2016. Photo by Junji Kurokawa.
Our Reading of THE VERY SPECIAL DAY at Inokashira Koen SUN Oct. 23, 2016. Photo by Junji Kurokawa.
Our Reading of THE VERY SPECIAL DAY at Inokashira Koen SUN Oct. 23, 2016. Photo by Junji Kurokawa.
Our Reading of THE VERY SPECIAL DAY at Inokashira Koen SUN Oct. 23, 2016. Photo by Junji Kurokawa.
So I thought about what could be a very special day for Mama, and so I asked her: “Mama, what would you like to do on your funeral?” Mama stopped moving all of a sudden, and I thought she might even spank me because it was so all of a sudden, though she hardly ever ever ever spanks me. That was how sudden it was. Then she went back to normal and said, “I want a lot of beautiful music.” So I said very quickly to catch up with her suddenness, “Mama, I will play that music. I will.”
_ Excerpt from “The Very Special Day,” a story first published in KONCH: Ishmael Reed Publishing Co. 2013, and a TOKYO FLOWER CHILDREN picture book, published 2016.
More photos from Inokashira Park courtesy park organizers:
BOOK PARTYfree admission featuring LIVE PAINTING by Munenori Tamagawa and poet Yuri Kageyama’s YURICANE spoken-word band with Kouzan Kikuchi (shakuhachi), Hiroshi Tokieda (bass), Trupti (vocals), Hirokazu Suyama (tabla). Special GuestsKenwood Dennard, Biankah Bailey, Jacqueline Mujaya , Taylor Mignon and more. SUN Aug. 7, 2016 2 p.m. Infinity Books. 1F Komagata Bashi Heights Bldg , 1-2-4 Azumabashi, Sumida-ku, Tokyo, 130-0001 SAT Aug. 13, 2016 2 p.m. Demi Cafe in sora Gallery. 3-14-1 Honcho Kokubunji-shi, Tokyo 85-0012
THE VERY SPECIAL DAY book party at Infinity Books in Tokyo SUN Aug. 7, 2016. Photos by Emiko Tokai.
Live Painting with the reading.
Kenwood Dennard, professor at Berklee College of Music, reads his poetry at THE VERY SPECIAL DAY
Jackie Mujaya speaks about Tanaganika Kids at THE VERY SPECIAL DAY at Infinity Books in Tokyo. Cherie Willoughby, at right, who also read her poetry.
A collaboration by Sandile Ngidi and Yuri KageyamaJune 2022 ~ (ongoing)
Sandile(June 12, 2022)
It is windy, rough, chimneys banging in the winds,
begging for mercy, pebbles.
Still meditating, but prayers return as cloudbursts. Blood.
Sky dances, but no raindrops on the lips.
Bare gullies.
Bedrocks rehearsing illness songs.
Orphans on dry geomorphology.
Yuri(June 19, 2022)
The blue-green planet is but a sneeze
Lost in two billion light years of solitude,
That speck of snot, or dot, of human life
In an eternal line of ancestral tradition:
Like Shuntaro Tanikawa and Mansai Nomura,
On this Juneteenth, we remember
Hope, courage, that patient wait.
Sandile(July 2, 2022)
On the first day of the month, the sun went home in splendid form.
A good ruse for me to sleep, and wake up in top form.
A world of theatrical summons suddenly made sensuous.
I am walking into the village where one season,
the magic of laughter died.
My dogs running.
Joyous.
Yuri(July 12, 2022)
The Music falls silent.
Piping, pellets, powder,
Wrapped in tape,
Two smoking blasts
from a homemade gun,
Assassination Assassination
Sinking and numb
We face each other and a new world
Sandile (July 8, 2022)
hope pulses with astonishing freshness.
i’m home
embracing every tiny patch
food in green pastures
songs making me feel whole
while mourning a dear brother
Mandla Dlamini,
his leaf refusing to wither …
Yuri(July 14, 2022)
… you are home:
The rice smells sweet,
Take your shoes off and let
The tatami cool your tired toes;
Take a deep breath;
Let it seep within _
That feeling that you count
When what’s going on around us
Is just the opposite.
Sandile (Aug. 18, 2022)
A man from boyhood rises on a point of order.
Tells a tiktok traffic DJ, his potatoes are wrapped in blood.
Pleads for wifey to go gentle into his black potato sack.
To keep it cool, moist.
This tiny poem is no portrait of a man as a naked cook.
It is his pain.
Sandile(Aug. 24, 2022)
In the punishing winds,
chimneys sing in the bloody winds.
Why can’t you see?
Sit down. Grow wings.
Simply sing along.
Grow dreadlocks. Brush your dog.
Chill out with bafo.
And Hugh. Cool laughers.
Sandile’s photo for the segment above shows “Madala Kunene (left), a superb South African guitarist and raconteur. The young chap is Hugh Mdlalose, a talented documentary photographer. His father was a musicologist and named him after the great trumpeter. Madala is popularly known as bafo. Zulu for brother.”
Yuri (Aug. 26, 2022)
it’s a blessed day
when you wake up and write
a poem,
or rather a poem wakes up
and gets you
to write a poem;
it just comes but it
has to be
a blessed day;
never forget when it happens last,
or those long silent days
when you just suffered.
^____<
(The poetic trans-planetary collaboration between Sandile Ngidi in South Africa and Yuri Kageyama in Japan has evolved over time. Their previous works are: #peacepoetry (March ~ May 2022), and the work that started it all in 2021: “Magic 50 of COVID-19 Poems.” The tradeoff of lines in a literary hand-holding defied geographic borders, in a shared vision, week by week, or almost week by week, through the pandemic, the war in Ukraine, the comings and going of daily life. “This poetic dance is our call and response. A tango of sorts,” Ngidi says. Without having ever met once in real life, the poets know simple but totally perfect mutual understanding. Thank God for Poetry.)
My poetry is in great company here in LIFE AND LEGENDS Twelfth Edition July 15, 2022, Irvine, CA, USA. Thanks to the Editor-in-Chief: Kalpna Singh-Chitnis.
