Yuri Kageyama « Yuri Kageyama

OUR READING AT THE AAJA CONVENTION HYATT REGENCY SAN FRANCISCO FRI AUG 14, 2015.

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OUR POETRY READING AT THE AAJA CONVENTION HYATT REGENCY SAN FRANCISCO FRI AUG. 14, 2015.

Poetry written and read by Yuri Kageyama
Music by the Yuricane band
Melvin Gibbs bass
Hide Asada guitar
Hirokazu Suyama drums and tabla

We presented three duets _ all happened to be about death, “Kawabata Yasunari’s Room,” “A Poem for Kenji Goto” and “The Kamikaze” _ and an excerpt from my Fukushima series, which will be part of the performance piece debuting at La MaMa Experimental Theatre in New York “NEWS FROM FUKUSHIMA: Meditation on an Under-Reported Catastrophe by a Poet,” Sept. 11 – 13, 2015 (please see next post for details).

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From Left to Right: Melvin Gibbs, Yuri Kageyama, Hirokazu Suyama, Hide Asada.
Photos by Annette Borromeo Dorfman.

KAMIKAZE AND FUKUSHIMA (A MOTHER SPEAKS)

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KAMIKAZE AND FUKUSHIMA (A Mother Speaks)
Poetry by Yuri Kageyama
Music and Guitar by Hide Asada
at What the Dickens in Tokyo SUN July 5, 2015.

The Kamikaze _ A Poem by Yuri Kageyama

KAMIKAZE
A poem by Yuri Kageyama

Okaasan
Boku wa ashita shutsugeki shimasu.
I take off on my mission tomorrow.
I am so sorry I have not been a good son, leaving you so soon.
It’s such a peaceful evening _ so quiet I can almost hear the fireflies glowing.
I don’t know why, but I am filled with happiness, well, maybe not happiness, since I must say goodbye.
But this feeling fills my heart, all the way to the top of my pilot helmet, like a stretching sky without a single cloud.
I will fly my Zero, and fly and fly.
Into that perfect rainbow circle of hope.

NEWS FROM FUKUSHIMA: A MOTHER SPEAKS
A poem by Yuri Kageyama

Please listen and tell the world.
How our children in Fukushima are getting thyroid cancer, one by one.
My daughter is one of them.
Pediatric thyroid cancer is rare.
The chance for getting it is under one in a million.
One in a million.
But in Fukushima, it’s 112 out of 380,000 children tested, and the tally is growing.
This is Fukushima after Three-Eleven.
Beautiful Fukushima, where rice paddies stretch between lazy mountains.
Beautiful Fukushima, where snow falls everywhere like fluffy rice.
Beautiful Fukushima, where, when spring finally comes, cherry trees explode in pink chiffon.
But this is Fukushima after Three-Eleven.
No other place in Japan is like that.
No other place in the world is like that _ except for the Ukraine and Belarus.
But they say these cases are turning up because we are looking so much harder, testing all the children in Fukushima.
The authorities say they are playing it safe.
When no one really feels safe
After Three-Eleven in Fukushima.
My little girl got surgery and so her tumor was removed.
And the doctor told me: Aren’t you so lucky?
Aren’t you so lucky we did those tests to save your child?
If we hadn’t, the cancer might not have been found.
But I don’t feel lucky.
I don’t feel lucky at all.

MY POETRY WITH MUSIC AT MORGAN SALON SAT JUNE 13, 2015

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Photos by Eba Chan.

Who: Rock Legend Morgan Fisher plays host to a collaboration with Poet Yuri Kageyama and the Yuricane _ Hirokazu Suyama Jackson (drums), Yuiichiro Ishii (guitar) and Nobutaka Yamasaki (keyboards) in Morgan Salon No. 5

What: The Spoken Word, Improvisation, Film, Rock ‘n’ Roll, Swing, Funk, Life and Death and other Meanings and Moments.

Where: At Morgan’s. A fine minute walk from Daitabashi Station (Keio Line near Shinjuku) 2-2-4 Izumi Suginami-ku Tokyo 168-0063

When: SAT June 13, 2015 7 p.m. (doors open 6:30 p.m.)

Another Who: SPECIAL GUEST Trupti Pandkar vocals.

Why: Why not?

My Poetry and Music with Morgan Fisher.
Poster by Annette Borromeo Dorfman.
Photos by Eba Chan.

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Photos by Eba Chan.

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

FUKUSHIMA (reworked/revisisted) A Poem by Yuri Kageyama

I’ve added a stanza to the Fukushima poem and reworked it, incorporating suggestions from Ishmael Reed. A marvel how poetry works.

FUKUSHIMA
A Poem by Yuri Kageyama

Y’all, it’s a Meltdown nation
Since Three-Eleven
Covered in the fear
Of unseen radiation
But don’t you expect
Any revolution
All you will find
Is fear and contamination.

Here in Fukushima
It rhymes with Hiroshima
Instead of a holler
Hear just a whimper
They say it is safe
But the kids like Chernobyl
Are coming down sick
With Thyroid cancer.

Fukushima
Fukushima
Fukushima

Y’all, it’s no hallucination
The refugees’ life
No compensation
No resolution
Just nuclear explosions
Get your dosimeter
Cesium in the water
Lost Imagination

Here in Fukushima
It rhymes with Hiroshima
The radiated Brothers
Faces are hidden
Goggles and masks
Like an astronaut
From head to toe
The Invisible workers

Fukushima
Fukushima
Fukushima

Premature aging
Nerve cells dying
Sterility, deformity
Unborn baby
Blood count dissipation
Leukemia debilitation
DNA radiation
Godzilla’s trademark affliction

Tsunami Demolition
God’s DeCreation
Genetic Devastation
Our next Generation.
Here in Fukushima
It rhymes with Hiroshima
No-go zones forever
The World must remember.

Fukushima
Fukushima
Fukushima

A Poem About About by Yuri Kageyama

Flowers Before

Flowers After

About _ A Poem by Yuri Kageyama

Going through
Various stages
A student one moment,
A lover, a worker, a friend
Other moments
A plumber
A soldier
A poet
Mother
Daughter
Father
Son
Changing
Each moment
But no matter
Which Moment
What Stage
Whatever Roles we play
The ways we make a Living,
It’s always
About Who we are

Why? A Poem by Yuri Kageyama

WHY?
A Poem by Yuri Kageyama

Why?
Don’t ask Why.
Why?
If you need to ask, don’t.
Why?
Worse reasons.
Why?
And worse to do.
Why?
Oh, why?
Why?
Why ask?
Why do?
Why do?
Why?
Why?
Why?
And why?
But why?

Reading poetry about women for women’s day in Tokyo

March 8, 2015 International Women’s Day event in Tokyo.

I’m reading poetry about women at an International Women’s Day event in Tokyo SUN March 8, 2015.
I’m reading with Hirokazu Suyama on percussion and Yuuiichiro Ishii on guitar.
What the Dickens in Ebisu 7 p.m.
Many other talented poets and musicians at this fund-raiser for the Lighthouse Center for Human Trafficking Victims.
I’m in the opening segment with two other poets, Biankah Bailey and Joy Waller.
A good cause and good art and good people.

EN-EN-EN-EN-EN A Poem by Yuri Kageyama

En-EN-EN-EN-EN
A Poem by Yuri Kageyama

POETRY
DOES NOT
CANNOT
EN-TERTAIN
POETRY
DOES CAN
EN-GAGE
EN-RAGE
EN-LIGHTEN

Every Father is Violent Every Mother Overbearing Knowing That Same Pain Not Extraordinary Violent Fathers Overbearing Mothers Is Growing Up _ a poem by Yuri Kageyama

Every Father is Violent Every Mother Overbearing Knowing That Same Pain Not Extraordinary Violent Fathers Overbearing Mothers Is Growing Up
A poem by Yuri Kageyama

Every Father is Violent
Every Mother is Overbearing
We went through the Same Pain
We hand down that
Same Pain
As Violent Fathers
As Overbearing Mothers
The Pain is Real
Not Extraordinary
Getting Used to
That Idea
Getting Used to
That Same Pain
That’s Growing Up.