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.
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.
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.”
A journal of my poetry, music and other thoughts that I kept from April through May 2020 about living in a post-pandemic world has now been published in the special issue of Ishmael Reed’s KONCH online literary magazine. And what great company I am in.
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.
(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. )
An ode to the Asian Uncle Tom A Yuricane poem (or does power always turn evil?) by Yuri Kageyama
a painting collaboration by Munenori Tamagawa and Radio the Artist as Yuri Kageyama reads this poem written by Yuri Kageyama at What The Dickens in Tokyo Feb 4, 2018.
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