My book “The New and Selected Yuri _ Writing From Peeling Till Now” in the Cornell Alumni Magazine:
“In her collection of new and selected poems, Kageyama debunks cultural stereotypes and explores how racism and sexism scar people.”
A mention in the Cornell Alumni Magazine
From Yuri To Yuri
From Yuri To Yuri _ Japanese Womanhood Across Borders Of Time
A Contemporary Renku Poem (a work in progress)
By Yuri Matsueda and Yuri Kageyama.
(15)
take this knife
lay it down on a round table of
rotting wood
a child trapped in a body with
big pale breasts
a lipstick mouth
listen to the end
coming
in silence
a frog with a tadpole tail
a tadpole with frog legs
too much
hope isn’t good
you know what
to do
when things never change
neoteny
neoteny
^___<
(16)
hot roses vapored
became instant ash
left their reflection on his bones
highlighted in green
he is
as they say clean
pristine
^___<
(17)
to yuri from yuri
my solitary audience in blindness
i speak to you
our world sighs breathing in poem
a wilting whimper
a stabbing flash of sunflower
don’t cry, don’t die, don’t lie
no one listens in deafness
but you speak to me
you are my solitary audience
preceding sections:
(14)
(1-6) _ where it all started, and which goes to show sometimes all you need is one person to connect with in a special way to create poetry.
Yuri and I are both women bilingual/bicultural poets/writers with what we feel is a special sensitivity.
It goes without saying we realize we are creating for a niche market. Just kidding.
It makes sense to us and that’s what counts.
Neoteny Japan
Bejeweled gourds and intricately decorated dolls from Mayu Kikuchi make for yet another but superbly whimsical statement in Japanese neoteny art.
I asked her why so much of Japanese art looks this way, and she says that’s so established these days, that’s what sells and what art teachers steer you toward.
“Before, I used to do more grotesque pieces, like a knife stabbing the head,” she motions with her hand toward her forehead, smiling, “and then things are spurting out.”
She and her mother were selling her lovingly handmade works at an annual summer craft fair in Shiodome, Tokyo.
She has huge dolls, characters from strange tales in her mind, modern-day versions of Bunraku puppets.
Those weren’t for sale because they had taken so long to make, said Kikuchi, 25.
Other works weren’t quite so priceless.
And so one of her cloth fish and “kokeshi” madames now hang in our living room, swimming with joy and doubt about where they stand in the world of universal art.
From Yuri To Yuri (continued)
From Yuri To Yuri _ Japanese Womanhood Across Borders Of Time
A Contemporary Renku Poem (a work in progress)
Yuri Matsueda and I have been taking turns, going back and worth, to build a narrative epic poem.
The section below, our latest, is by Yuri Matsueda.
My segment that preceded it is haiku.
All this follows our previous poems.
Our collaboration continues.
(14)
片頬を青く染め
目を伏せた
陶器の額を捧げ
妻はその一瞬をものにした
夫のため息に
身震いしたのは
誤魔化すことができないからである
彼女はそこにたどり着けない
それが彼女の誇りである
* * * * *
あの日夏の川
心に硬い氷があった
二人の桜の木陰で
その背中
突き落とすべきか
迷っていた私が
電車の窓から見えた
Haiku (compiled)
From Yuri to Yuri _ Japanese Womanhood Across Borders of Time
A Contemporary Renku Poem (a work in progress)
(13)
HAIKU
ステンドグラス
ひかりを染める
妻のゆび
stained glass
nudging color into light
my wife’s fingers
春の朝
ピンクが爆発
シフォン舞う
spring morning
pink explodes
chiffon whirls
なき孫が
小皺に霞む
化粧水
dead grandchild
a blurring thought lost in wrinkles
skin lotion’s smell
田んぼにも
見える砂漠の
地平線
rice paddies
you can see it
a desert horizon
浜名湖に
沈め忘れる
父の虐待
at Hamanako
forgetting burying
beatings by my father
桜ちり
ここにいます！と
どぶによむ
sakura petals
falling, write “I am here!”
into the ditch
So I’ve put all the haiku together that I wrote recently. In two parts, they are my segments for the work-in-progress poem “From Yuri To Yuri,” a collaboration with Yuri Matsueda.
The first part of the series.
Agism
Women like me probably feel they’ve all gone through their lives suffering some kind of discrimination for being female and for being non-white.
And now, I am starting to realize _ and maybe I am lucky for not having to see this earlier _ that I am going to encounter another reason for discrimination: Age!
I was naive: I thought that with age, women will be seen less sexually desirable as females, and that would help even out the score and lead to more equality.
No such thing.
Japan is a culture that worships youth, which is strange (or maybe not so strange) given that this is one of the most rapidly aging societies on earth.
In the US, youngsters get pushed around because they have no power, money or status.
And that’s why we grew up saying: Don’t trust anyone over 30.
Agism, it turns out, is just as ridiculous as discrimination on the basis of sex and race.
Age really has nothing to do with anything. But there seems to be a fear about the inability to keep up with the latest.
Appearance is another obvious factor.
Yuri Kageyama gains another battlefront!
Kimiko Date is making a comeback in tennis at 38.
Her husband, a racing driver, told her she may have always won up to now, but what she must learn now is that she must lose, sometimes to those who are younger than she is.
This struck me as very wise words.
That may sound like a contradiction, after all I said about agism, but it’s not, really: We must learn to accept defeat, including defeat to those who are younger than us, because, after all, we’re getting older, and statistically there are going to be more people who are younger than you, if you live longer.
(We never accept discrimination _ which is totally, totally different from defeat judged by performance, which is irrelevant to age per se.)
No one wins all the time _ age and experience are no guarantee for your win.
You win some and lose some.
And it’s just as important to accept rightful defeat as it is to keep going at it to win.
From Yuri To Yuri (continued)
From Yuri To Yuri _ Japanese Womanhood Across Borders Of Time
A Contemporary Renku Poem (a work in progress) continued from previous:
By Yuri Matsueda and Yuri Kageyama
(7)
i finally know / why being young hurts more / it’s not just we feel everything more clearly/ we don’t have as many memories / everything isn’t yet a blur/ you haven’t felt this anguish, have you, this same pain / babies/ wanted unwanted/ Cesareans, abortions, stillbirths, breech births, miscarriage/ that little baby who never was / we’re harassed on the job, molested on the train, date-raped and then raped by that stranger that criminal you despise but can barely remember his face / we lose weight and self-confidence and dreams / we can’t find a job/ we are vulnerable / hungering for love, respect, understanding / when we know better / really / that no one understands/ we watch them die, hobbled, losing their minds, decaying with cancer, bed-ridden, speechless / we stand alone when they leave / face to face/ the hole / a dirt-filled grave/ we no longer bear the waiting of that fetus growing within us / wanted unwanted / no longer thirst for love / reaching for that partner / for babies/ wanted unwanted/ we don’t remember / in/ our own death/ we can’t forget /
(8)
死は容赦なく前触れもなく
楽で
退屈しのぎに
乱暴に
消費した
時間の先に
唐突な
死があって
立ち止まると
静かな愛があった
(9)
you are my daughter
the little girl i never had
that woman asleep in my son’s arms
nursing a new life that has yet to be
but i see you are gone
leaving behind nothing
but a deep passage of time
and a shaking pool of tears
(10)
駆け上った
階段
廊下の窓をこじ開ける
煙突探して
目を凝らすも
ただ白い雲が過ぎてゆく
カラカラ積もる
珊瑚礁のよう
吹けばたちまち塵となる
風に乗ってどこへ行く
あおい空へ伸びてゆく
(11)
sky
scattered
clouds
dreams
dissipate
i fly
without wings
sky
swooping
endless
***
(12)
throw me in the seven seas
where my young breasts freeze
in the black waters
my hair
they gleam
and I float
lost in time
I am so lost in time
Ara-Saa (short for Around Thirty in Japanese)
around thirty
you’ve turned the corner
past your expiration date
still looking for mr right
clinging to a sex in the city view on life
strutting the career highway on jimmy choos
while your market value drops
a chloe bag on an outlet rack
there’s no space, get real,
between the cute nymphomaniac teen and
the victorious pregnant housewife
except for trips to massage salons
giggly ethnic dinners out with the girls
nowhere affairs with the married boss
stop wondering why
no one good asks you out
stop asking why
no one notices
you’re smart, beautiful, on-the-go,
in top notch belly-dancing-lessons shape
and ever so available
life is not a Yahoo auction
life is not a Disneyland make-a-wish-list
you must stop
and ask yourself
how you can become
that person
who can love
without asking
for
anything
back
in return
Story of Miu 12
Reading at the Kuraki Noh Theater Dec. 6, 2008
with Yumi Miyagishima on violin, playing “Sleep” by Kyosuke Koizumi and Winchester Nii Tete on kpanlogo percussion.
Story of Miu 11 including links to previous entries.
I’m sitting in a stuffy waiting room, not bothering to wonder why the others _ troubled looking women of all ages and shapes _ would need to be there.
It is clear birth is not the reason we are all here, even the nurses in pale pink outfits and the feminist gynecologist with the stern voice.
I am too nervous and worried to feel shame or guilt.
I just want Miu to come out from behind the curtains where she has gone _ safe and alive and in one piece and the job done.
This is not a good feeling.
But this is all I can think.
We have all been there _ our legs open _ to remind us of what we did, not with just anyone but a man we truly loved but maybe who didn’t love us enough _ the chilly metal enters like an uncutting but unfeeling knife, merciless, guiltless, sinless until our drugged minds leave us _ start counting: one, two, three, four _ like angels who have given up.
And we feel nothing and we remember nothing.
We do not think of the baby that was, that could have been, that never was.
It is a tiny wormlike thing that must be removed like a bloody tumor because it is not a human being yet.
And I only want her to come out of there from behind the sterile curtains, safe and healthy and smiling.
I know she doesn’t want to part with this human being that never was.
She wanted it to go on and on, feeling that person inside of her.
“It’s not something to do immediately; that’s not right,” she says. She has waited a week alone. She has not told anyone.
I don’t realize this: All I am thinking about is her, not the thing that is inside of her.
But the baby who never was is that grandchild who never was, the future of the race, generations to come, who looks like your grandfather, your father, your son, the man you love, those little feet that run to you and bring snotty cheek against cheek, filled with life when you are only nearing death.
When she finally comes out of her drugged sleep, walks courageously to me in the waiting room, faking a smile, her breath smells like an old woman.
=THE END=
From Yuri To Yuri _ A Poem in Progress
From Yuri To Yuri
Japanese Womanhood Across Borders of Time
By Yuri Matsueda and Yuri Kageyama
2008 in Tokyo
(1)
20年後あるいは30年後かの自分と対峙し
瞳の深淵をそっと覗き見る
睫毛の長さ
目元の影
声の艶
足首の締まり
それらは注意深く観察される
わずかな欲望はざらついた嫉妬へ
嫉妬は称賛
安堵へ
その移ろいをゆっくりと舌先で転がす昼下がり
私たちは松檮を歩いていた
(2)
pale hands folded over silken robes
music tangled like wind among pine trees
she waits, waits, waits for her daimyo lover
i can’t love a man i can’t respect
i fall for men who’re no good for me
i won’t love a man who might destroy me
her breasts grow fuller with each breath
she knows he will return in the darkness
her tongue is dry and sallow
i can’t resist a man who means danger
his cocky sneer, his sword, his dreams,
his probing lips and fingertips
(3)
月に照らされ
家族を忘れ
あなたを忘れ
過去を忘れ
大気を切り抜け
時間を走り
窓はふさがれ
耳はふさがれ
体はしめられ
心翔る
自由である
夜間飛行
(4)
walking
the path of time of generations of memories of ignorance
all the forgotten women
all the forgotten lovers
all the forgotten babies
walking
past Shibuya cobblestones of footprints of dreams of death
fading love hotels
gleaming boutiques
salesmen passing tissue to no one
walking
faceless voices blend with sirens and cicadas
overheard giggles
sheer wisps of thoughts
too lazy to speak the truth or lies
at dusk
(5)
一本先へ
一本奥へ
円山町を背にして
蝉の声に誘われ
さまよう
女二人
不意に途切れた
鳴き声の間に
白い腹をみせた
亡骸をまたいで
羽を散らした体を尻目に
松涛求めて
喘ぎ歩くも
跡なくあてなく
日、翳る
(6)
dot and line, dot and line
like marching ants spilling
from score sheets to table to equator to nightmares
black notations of silent thoughts of music
muted ramblings of an obscure composer
puttering notes only he and i can hear
fragments of jazz rhythms
broken crazed despised
did you know Ingmar Bergman was terrified of death
but as he grew older, as he approached that dreadful moment,
he was no longer afraid
did you know life is forever
when death comes
there will be no life to feel
i was lost when i was your age
you will help me find myself
at your age
with this poem