“CONTINUOUSLY POETRY” My new book of poems, a collaboration with Osaki HANIYA. Out as a real paper book January 2025. Please stay tuned for a big book party _ you are all invited to come celebrate poetry that knows no borders. Some poems shared on this site earlier became a part of the book: Continuously Poetry, Part Two and KELOID. I am very proud of this book. Special thanks to Shinsuke, who volunteered his time and love to put the digital data together so we could get it all nicely printed. So please come to the book party, but I already said that. Details coming soon.
I chanced upon this speech by Monique Truong at the Library of Congress in 2019, “The Pleasures of Not Being Lonely.” Below is what she says about my poem, “My Mother Takes a Bath.” I still like this poem. I’m proud and happy Monique likes my poetry _ and thank her:
“I want to share with you a poem by Yuri Kageyama, whose photograph in the anthology was a canvas of pitch black, with only her face, the waves of her hair, and a standing mic emerging from the darkness; her eyes are cast downward, focused on the instrument that is amplifying her voice. Her biographical statement identifies her as a “performer” who was born in Japan; grew up in Tokyo, Maryland, and Alabama; and now calls San Francisco her home. This poem is entitled “My Mother Takes a Bath,” and the body is at its center. This is how it begins:
My mother
Sits
In the round uterine
rippling green water
hazy vapor-gray dampness
soapy smelling
in the air—a circle cloud—above
the tub of a bath
the wet old wood
sending sweet stenches
sometimes piercing to her nose and sometimes
swimming in the hot, hot water
tingling numb at the toes and fingertips
when she moves too quickly but
lukewarm caught in the folds of her white white belly
Her face is brown-spottled
beautiful with dewdrop beads of sweat lined neatly where
her forehead joins her black wavy tired hair
and above her brown-pink lips
one drop lazily hangs, droops over,
sticking teasingly to her wrinkle
then pling! falls gently
playfully disappears into the water
She sighs
And touches her temple
high and naked
runs her fingers over the lines deep
Her hand
has stiff knuckles
enlarged joints crinkled and hardened
but her thick nails thaw in the water and
her hand is
light
against her face
and gentle and knowing
and the palm
next to her bony thumb
is soft
Her breasts are blue-white clear
with soft brown nipples that dance
floating with the movements of the
waves of the little ocean tub
slowly, a step behind time, slowly
She sighs again . . .
For me, the pleasure of recognizing a kindred body, a family of kindred bodies, was followed in quick succession by the pleasure of recognizing the kindred spirit.”
“Throughout history woman as the eternal nourisher of life has given herself freely because it has been decreed as her sole function in life _ to give. More than two decades ago Lindbergh posed the question: but is it purposeful living? In the poem quoted above, an old Japanese woman asks the same question, and answers in the affirmative. The old woman forgets the passing of time and ages, ‘As she sits alone/With the water/singing koto strings in her ears.’ This is a twilight world of serenity and pseudo-contentment.”
This is something I just happened to find in my desk, typed up (yes, typed _ remember those days?). It’s an essay about why I am a reporter, and why I report in the English language that I wrote I think in the 1980s. Perhaps I was applying for work? It is long before I joined The AP. I am not changing the wording, but have put it down exactly the way it is typed on the sheet of paper, except for the four changes made in red in pen that were already there. I might write it differently today. But I feel exactly the same. So here goes:
Ever since I can remember, I have been of both worlds _ American and Japanese. As a child of a Japanese “salaryman” who had dreams of pioneering science by crossing borders, years before the Japanese business Establishment decided “internationalization” was fashionable, I was constantly thrust back and forth between two very different, sometimes clashing, cultures.
I will not pretend that the experience was always pleasant. It was often stunning, confusing and painful. One moment, for instance, I was expected to be the submissive, demure Japanese girl, who laughed shyly covering her mouth. The next moment, I found myself having to turn into an assertive, no-nonsense American, who could outtalk and outperform any male.
Gradually I have come to accept this dichotomy. In a sense, I now cherish it as a privilege. I took to switching cultural allegiance for convenience. I would claim my “Japaneseness” when watching Ennosuke Ichikawa Kabuki, but I would, with no qualms, claim “Americanhood” while appreciating soul rhythms at an Earth, Wind and Fire concert.
It is, after all, an eyeopener to perceive that many of society’s rules are arbitrary. What passes as positive in one culture may be absolutely taboo in another, and vice versa. As a perpetual outsider, one can see through much of the false pretentious aspects of social norms and values and hope to grasp more accurately the universal human essence.
Reporting in English about Japanese matters, therefore, came naturally to me. Explaining the East to the West has been my persistent pastime. It is something I do well, I think, because it is part of my fate.
Earlier this year, I flew to Iwo Jima to cover the Tokyo Metropolitan Government’s annual services for the war dead there. The sandy island speckled with gnarled tropical vegetation appeared, at first glance, barren except for the military bases.
Yet, upon closer inspection, strange voices seemed to fill the hot, dry air _ chants verging on song, rising and falling. So many people, both American and Japanese, have died here, the voices seemed to be saying. Their blood covers this island. Even if it has been washed away, the fact of history that thousands died here will never be erased, the windlike voices were saying.
Two monuments stand on Iwo Jima _ the one put up by Americans with the Stars and Stripes and the other of gray stone built by Japanese with a graphic depiction of the map of Japan. As though staring into two alien worlds with unmoving granite eyes, the two monuments remain apart on opposite sides of the same hill.
The visit held a revelation for me. Obviously, Japan and the U.S. are two separate countries that have even waged war against one another. Today, many of the misunderstanding and barriers that divide the two nations are still close to insurmountable. But thanks to a slightly aberrant upbringing, the two worlds are totally at peace within myself.
It is this unconditional yet effortless peace between Japan and America I know so intimately that I want to keep in mind when I work as a reporter.
Taiko takes a freeer American fun festive flair at the North American Taiko Conference at the “Taiko Ten” outdoor concert at Stanford University FRI Aug. 19, 2011. Isaku Kageyama played with his fellow yonsei and other friend taiko drummers Masato Baba, Yuta Kato, Shoji Kameda, Jen Baik and Chris Bergstrom.
Taiko is at once American and Japanese, fun and free, and plain good music.
