Writing « Yuri Kageyama

My AP Stories for 2025

My AP Stories for 2025

My AP Story July 8, 2025 on Japanese boxing star Junto Nakatani, a story relayed to the world as a Top Story for The Associated Press.

As a reporter, I am privileged to meet some of the best people in the world, like this champion, Junto Nakatani. When I asked him about how he is always smiling, even in the ring, he told me matter-of-factly that it is a disadvantage to get angry because “you lose control.” Obviously, boxing is all about winning. He also said he believes winning by knockout is what is “expected” of him. And I felt like a mom, as I often do at interviews, and in life, because I am one, and couldn’t help but respond with an empathetic: “Hey, it’s OK to just win.” Which goes to say that Nakatani is a very special person _ to bring that out in you.

My AP Story and My AP Photos July 9, 2025 on Tsukudani, a traditional dish made in Tsukuda, Japan.

My AP Story and My AP Photos July 9, 2025, a recipe for Tsukudani.

I’m a Contributor to this AP Story June 24, 2025 about travel disruptions because of Middle East tensions.

My AP Story June 10, 2025 on the merger of the truck units of Toyota and Daimler.

My AP Story June 9, 2025 on a sumo wrestler’s retirement.

My AP Story May 27, 2025 and My AP Photo on the new CEO approved by shareholders at 7-Eleven.

My AP Story May 26, 2025 and My AP Photos on Nissan’s e-Power technology.

My AP Story May 20, 2025 on Honda delaying its electrification strategy to focus more on hybrids.

My AP Story May 21, 2025 on Japan’s trade data that show exports falling.

My AP Video Story May 13, 2025 on collectors’ cards being authenticated and evaluated in Japan.

My AP Story May 16, 2025 on Japan’s economy contracting.

My AP Story May 13, 2025 on job cuts at Nissan.

My AP Story May 14, 2025 on record profits at Sony.

My AP Story May 13, 2025 on profits falling at Honda.

My AP Story May 13, 2025 on SoftBank reporting a profit for the first time in four years.

My AP Book Review May 6, 2025.

My AP Story, My AP Photo and My AP Video April 23, 2025 on “Bullet Train Explosion.”

My AP Story May 9, 2025 on job cuts at Panasonic.

My AP Story May 8, 2025 on Toyota’s financial results.

My AP Story and My AP Photos May 1, 2025 on May Day around the world.

My AP Photos are part of this Gallery on May Day.

My AP Story April 22, 2025, a book review on a memoir.

My AP Story April 18, 2025 on a Star Wars event in Japan.

My Co-Byline AP Story May 5, 2025 about Trump’s trade demands.

My AP Story April 30, 2025 on the collaboration between Toyota and Waymo.

My AP Story and My AP Photos April 25, 2025 on the CEO-to-be of the 7-Eleven chain.

My AP Story April 24, 2025 about Nissan’s earnings forecast.

My AP Story May 2, 2025 about a minister’s comment on Japan’s U.S. Treasury holdings.

My AP Story April 17, 2025 on Japan’s trade data.

My AP Story April 15, 2025 about Japanese regulators accusing Google of monopolistic behavior.

My AP Story and My AP Photos April 10, 2025 on a machine that measures the fattiness of tuna.

My AP Story April 6, 2025 on a helicopter crash.

My AP Story April 1, 2025 on a major survey about sentiments on the economy.

My AP Story and My AP Photos March 26, 2025 on Nissan’s soon-to-be CEO.

My AP Story March 18, 2025, a book review.

My AP Story March 13, 2025 on 7-Eleven.

My AP Story March 11, 2025 on Nissan replacing its chief executive.

My AP Story and My AP Photos March 10, 2025 on Nissan’s driverless vehicles.

My AP Story and My AP Photos Feb. 22, 2025 on a city Toyota is building near Mount Fuji.

My AP Story Feb. 25, 2025 on Toyota trying to add diverse views to its board.

My AP Story and My AP Photos Feb. 19, 2025 on marketing Japan’s elderly.

My AP Story Feb. 17, 2025 on Japan’s economy.

My AP Story Feb. 13, 2025 on Nissan and Honda dropping their talks for a business integration.

My AP Story Feb. 5, 2025 on Toyota’s EV initiatives in China and the U.S.

My AP Story Feb. 4, 2025 on the appeals court ruling on the case of Nissan’s former executive Greg Kelly.

My AP Story Jan. 16, 2025 on a YouTube star with eyes now on a global audience.

My AP Story Feb. 3, 2025 on the partnership between SoftBank and OpenAI for smarter artificial intelligence.

My AP Story Jan. 30, 2025 on Nissan’s job and production cuts in the U.S.

My AP Story Jan. 24, 2025 on the Bank of Japan raising interest rates.

My AP Story Jan. 23, 2025 on Japan’s trade data.

My AP Story Jan. 16, 2025 on bank executives taking pay cuts after acknowledging an employee stole from customers’ safe deposit boxes.

My AP Story Jan. 13, 2025 on the quake that hit southwestern Japan.

My AP Story Jan. 7, 2025 on Nippon Steel determined to push its US Steel takeover.

My AP Story Jan. 5, 2025 about a Nagasaki bombing survivor, who has died.

My AP Story Jan. 4, 2025 on the death of the world’s oldest person.

My AP Story Jan. 2, 2025 on the well-wishers at the Imperial Palace.

I’m a Contributor to this AP Story Jan. 1, 2025, which started out as My last AP Story for last year.

“CONTINUOUSLY POETRY” MY NEW BOOK OF POEMS

“CONTINUOUSLY POETRY” My new book of poems

“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.

FEARLESS AT 90 a poem by Yuri Kageyama

FEARLESS AT 90 a poem by Yuri Kageyama

I am fearless at 90

Wrinkles deep as the Nile

Hair translucent spiderwebs

Varicose veins throbbing blood

A map of fate on a carcass of skin

I am fearless at 90

I rap poetry with my dentures

Jazz dance with my wobbly knees

I rock like Jimi Hendrix

We Boomers invented Revolution

I am fearless at 90

I’m so close to the pearly gates

I’m on speaking terms with the angels

I’m so near-sighted I read minds

My fungus breath slays dragons

I am fearless at 90

My wheelchair zips Ferrari-style

My voice resonates five octaves low

My cane duplicates as a samurai sword

My hearing aid just blocks out noise

I am fearless at 90

I have no appointments to keep

No bosses to please

No dates to impress

No one can put me down

I am fearless at 90

I barely remember what’s up or down

Or who is where anymore;

Beyond gender, race, class,

Or even age

I am fearless at 90

My skin like washi paper

My fingers gnarled like a witch

I am neither man nor woman

White, black, brown or yellow.

I am just 90, and fearless:

Those days are long gone,

Not trusting anyone over 30,

I’ve given birth to a thousand children

And have a million grandchildren

I am fearless at 90

Although death is around the corner,

I’ve seen war and peace

Endured abuse to survive;

Don’t expect or need respect

I’m proud to be fearless at 90

^___<

Note from the poet:

I am not yet 90, but I feel this way and wrote this poem.

When I’m 90, I will write my real fearless at 90 poem.

The poem was published in the Winter 2024 issue of KONCH MAGAZINE.

TOKYO CORRESPONDENCE

Tokyo Correspondence: Notes From a Writer Beyond the Headlines

I kept a blog from 2007 before I started this site in 2011. Here’s the link below. I’m also sharing after this TEPCO CORRESPONDENCE: Notes From a Writer Beyond the Headlines. Those are my posts on Facebook in 2011, while I was covering the utility behind the Fukushima nuclear disaster. It’s amazing to run across bits of your past self _ and what you wrote then. Both so clearly you and not you at all. Yet totally the truth. And all that makes you you.

https://yuri-kageyama.blogspot.com/

MY POETRY IN ISHMAEL REED’S KONCH

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.

MAGIC a poem by YURI KAGEYAMA

Why do We Write?

More Mysterious,

Why do We Read What we Write?

Why are there Chants, Prayers, Songs?

Poems?

Words are There To Be Spoken.

Words are There To Be Heard.

Magic of The Word.

Magic

The

Word.

AN UNDENIABLE FACT A haiku by Yuri Kageyama March 8, 2020 8:55 a.m.

AN UNDENIABLE FACT

A haiku by Yuri Kageyama

March 8, 2020 8:55 a.m.

Some

Writing

has no

Soul

No Voice (No Story being told)

Comes

from

Within

AN ELEGY FOR JOURNALISM A Poem by Yuri Kageyama

AN ELEGY FOR JOURNALISM
_ a poem by Yuri Kageyama

Stories killed, stories buried,
Stories untold, stories denied,
Robert and Dori Maynard
Woodward and Bernstein
Margaret Bourke-White
Howard Imazeki
Gary Webb
Robert Capa
Anja Niedringhaus
Gerald Vizenor
Gwen Ifill
Joe Oyama
Gordon Parks
Do we write to live or live to write?
Do we write to remember or do we write to forget?
Do we write to remember or do we write to be remembered?
Do we write so we don’t kill or do we write so we don’t kill ourselves?
Do we make movies to live or live to make movies?
Do we make music to live or live to make music?
Do we write to live or live to write?
Do we live?
Do we live?
Do we live?

The poem is a part of my performance piece “NEWS FROM FUKUSHIMA: Meditation on an Under-Reported Catastrophe by a Poet,” directed by Carla Blank, presented at ZSpace in San Francisco last year, debuting in an earlier version, without this poem, at LaMaMa in New York in 2015. This version combines what I wrote several weeks ago with what I wrote several years ago. I like this what this poem has become.

The Warning _ a poem by Yuri Kageyama

The Warning _ a poem by Yuri Kageyama

Writers
Beware:
What defines
A Square?
Those Who keep
Looking Around
To see Who’s
Giving them
The Glare,
Wooing approvers
With Sexual favors,
Unlike
The Poet
Who Listens
Only
To
That Voice
Within

YASUNARI KAWABATA’S ROOM a poem by Yuri Kageyama

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YASUNARI KAWABATA’S ROOM
a poem by Yuri Kageyama

The soft light flickers even in daylight on moss, ferns and rocks, and a well trickles drops into a circular pool of peace, beyond the tiny shoji window, where he used to sit, smile and pick on kaiseki dishes with friends like Yukio Mishima and Yae, the head maid of the ryokan inn, talking about nothing and everything, that moonlit space, like a dream remembered at midnight. He wrote only after everyone left and went to sleep. In a silence that is his only. So intense he feels numb. And he wrote like he bled, effortless but draining. He only needed one night. To get away and soak in that special space, a fantasy complete with the passing of the seasons, knowing of the right word and the shock of an ancient doll’s face, so very similar to that place in his mind and soul and his writing. No one raises his or her voice. Everyone is frivolous, fragile, forgetful. Tea is bitter-sweet foam, served with a pungent pastry. He wrote. He could write. And the publisher found his manuscript done, always, outside the door in the morning.

Yasunari Kawabata’s room at a Kyoto inn