My poetry an honorable mention in “The Terrible Fives” by Ishmael Reed
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.
NEWS FROM FUKUSHIMA: Meditation On An Under-Reported Catastrophe By A Poet is an Official Selection. Screening at LetLive Theater in Los Angeles SAT March 2, 2024 7:30 p.m. I am happy, grateful, honored. Thanks to my theater and film directors, Carla Blank and Yoshiaki Tago, my brilliant tireless multicultural cast, my dedicated crew and team, everyone who stuck with and believed in my writing.
My Poetry in Ishmael Reed’s KONCH
My poetry gets published in Ishmael Reed’s KONCH MAGAZINE.
“Fearless at 90” in KONCH magazine Winter 2024 issue.
What a thrill. And what company I keep.
My reading of the poem with bass by Toshiyuki “Turner” Tananashi. Tokyo 2024.
My Poetry and Essays in Ishmael Reed‘s THE PLAGUE ISSUES OF KONCH 2023
Ishmael and Tennessee Reed collected 62 contributions from people in China, Japan, Europe, Africa and the U.S. to write about their COVID experiences. And one of them is yours truly. The online collection of works crisscrossing the world and spanning two issues of KONCH literary magazine is coming out as a real-life book publication in 2024. On the cover is a photo taken in Venice of the poet, playwright, novelist, essayist, thinker and my forever mentor Ishmael Reed, standing next to a plague doctor (who else?) I am so happy, excited and honored. I can’t wait to get a copy.
MY CREATIVE WRITING IN THIS NEW BOOK
Great company I keep in BIGOTRY ON BROADWAY, an anthology edited by Ishmael Reed and Carla Blank, Baraka Books, September 2021.
From the publishers on the book cover:
“How do intellectuals and scholars feel about how members of their ethnic groups are portrayed on Broadway? How would we know? Very few of them have the power to rate which plays and musicals are worthy and which are flops, and above all, be heard or read. The American critical fraternity is an exclusive club.”
A review in Library Journal Sept. 1, 2021:
“Blank and Reed offer an incisive, critical take on Broadway’s past and present; discuss an alternative vision that incorporates the perspectives missing from Broadway; and look toward a more inclusive future. A book for all readers interested in the history of Broadway musicals, theater criticism, and the role of whiteness in Broadway’s misrepresentations.”
OMG! Great news: Two of my films NEWS FROM FUKUSHIMA and THE VERY SPECIAL DAY just became Official Selections at the Montreal Independent Film Festival.
Thanks to the festival, everyone for giving of their talent.
Thanks for believing in my poetry, my stories and my filmmaking.
The Tokyo Lift-Off Film Festival has selected not just one but two of my films for the event in June 2020 _ NEWS FROM FUKUSHIMA and THE VERY SPECIAL DAY.
Thanks to the organizers for believing in my vision. And thanks to all the artists who put up with me and worked on the films. We are all so looking forward to taking part in the event.
Both films are screening (online as the event has moved because of the coronavirus outbreak) MON June 22 ~ SUN June 28, 2020.
THE VERY SPECIAL DAY is showcased in the “Newcomers Short” section for Short Films, while NEWS FROM FUKUSHIMA is in the “Trendsetters” section for Feature Documentaries at the Tokyo Lift-Off Film Festival.
I AM THE VIRUS _ a poem in homage of Ishmael Reed
By Yuri Kageyama
(Written SUN March 22, 2020 as the world fights the pandemic over the new coronavirus that causes COVID-19 and I continue to be aghast at the utter lack of integrity among the supposedly best of us, the ignorance, selfishness, ugliness. )
I am the virus
I thrive on mossy envious egos
They keep showing up
Offices, clubs, picnics,
Choosing being seen, hoarding
Over social dis-tan-cing
I am the virus
I fester in corona-shaped clusters
Commuter trains, cruises, crowds
Peering at the Olympic torch,
I love the naming “Chinese virus”
The taunts, attacks on slant-eyed people
I am the virus
I cower when folks stay in
Takeout food, work from home,
A meter apart on solitary walks,
Wearing masks, washing hands,
Mixing aloe and alcohol
I am the virus
The crazy evil devoured
By doctors, vaccines, canceled concerts
Turning into live-streamed music,
People who remember to tell those they love
How much they really love them
AN ODE TO THE ASIAN UNCLE TOM _ a poem By Yuri Kageyama
NOW PUBLISHED IN THE SUMMER 2018 ISSUE OF KONCH edited and published by Ishmael Reed and Tennessee Reed.
An ode to the Asian Uncle Tom
A Yuricane poem (or does power always turn evil?)
by Yuri Kageyama
You sit prim with your glasses
Behind that desk, title, resume
Won on the backs of
The 442 Purple Hearts
Oblivious in your banal Banana-ism
To the fact that
Yellow is your Color
The most expedient, forgotten,
Cheapest of lives
Hiroshima
My Lai
North Korea
You sip white wine at ethnic restaurants
New York, Tokyo, Dubai, Bangkok
They all look alike
Smiling in Instagram posts
You have it made
You have them duped
You have arrived
Never mind, in your deepest fearful solitary moments,
You can’t help but pick out
Just those
Who look like you:
Race suddenly a Reality;
You must put them down,
And make sure they stay down,
Remain the invisible man, the invisible woman,
Establish as Fact through rumors and appraisals
That People of Color
Can’t be objective, and, be careful,
Get easily used,
You can do the math _ as the stereotype goes _
The slots are limited,
Tokenism being a zero sum game,
Diversity cannot be the majority;
You’ve long lost your ancestral accent
You’ve adopted the air of leaders
You’ve deleted memories
Of how we were all shackled,
We picked strawberries,
We built the Transcontinental Railroad,
We survived behind barbed wires,
Instead
You go to meetings,
Rehearse video appearances,
Take vacations to the Caribbean and Bali,
Sneer at Chinese going shopping,
Plan your retirement,
Asian American
Only to whites
