From a Three-Cornered World presents 60 poems by James Mitsui, 25 of them new. His poetry has, over two decades’ time and three previous volumes, asserted a strong and significant voice within the growing tradition of Asian American literature.
Mitsui’s poems contain a family history of immigration to the Pacific Northwest from Japan and the assimilation of American culture over three generations, including the relocation of Japanese Americans during World War II. His vignettes of family life are gems of bittersweet humor and tenacious affection, revealing a deft and earthly poetic charm. Mitsui ranges over many subjects and deals with major themes in language that is spare yet lyrical, expressing historical insight in profoundly moving imagery.
Table of Content
SELECTED PEOMS
from Journal of the Sun 1974
— Destination: Tule Lake Relocation Center
— Photograph of a Child
— Picture of a Japanese Farmer
— Section Hand, Great Northern Railway
— The Morning My Father Died
— Watching Bon Odori
— Because It Is Close and My Mother Is
— Shrike on Dead Tree
— Ohashi in a Shower
— Painting of a Hermitage
— Nisei: Second-Generation Japanese American
from Crossing the Phantom River 1978
— Allowance
— When Father Came Home for Lunch
— Katori Maru
— Holding Center, Tanforan Race Track
— Block 18, Tule Lake Relocation Camp
— The Table Lamp
— Samurai
— Surrounded by Autumn
— Waterfall at Dusk
— Exhibition
— Painting by a Mental Patient
— Cape Alava
— For a Chinese Pheasant
— New Lines for Fortune Cookies
— For the Ballerina in Death Valley Junction
from After the Long Train 1986
— Shakuhachi
— The East Watch House
— Minoru Mitsui
— Because of My Father’s Job
— Wooden Flower Vase
— Visiting My Mother at Kawabe House
— After a Stranger Calls
— Letter to Tina Koyama
— In Sight of Purple Crocus
NEW POEMS
Flexing Our Rippling Metaphors
— English Teachers
— What the Math Teacher Told Jim
— Isla Mujeres: My American Sonnet, 1986
— Letter to Ransom from Green Lake
— The World of Becoming
— Closure
— In Front of the Geoduck Display
— Paris Windows: Some Linked Bantu
— Because You Left Three Rocks
— Graffiti in a University Restroom
— Rationale
Cleveland Was Farther Away Than July
— You are Beautiful
— Christmas Poem, 1987
— Christmas Poem for Lilly
— Southwest of Stovepipe Wells
— Tohono O’Odham Indian Cemetery
— A Birthday Poem for Lilly
— Ode to My ’94 Honda Passport
— From a Window of Lowell’s Cafe
Painting Sunlight on the Wooden Wall of a House
— Getting Ready for Grandparenthood
— My Mother Juggling Bean Bags
— Wedding Poem for Janet & Drew
— At the Tom Mix Memorial
— Mitsui in English Means ‘Three Wells’
— Spring Poem for the Sake of Breathing
Acknowledgments
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