Joseph 
Tracing the Lines 
Reflections on Contemporary Poetics and Cultural Politics in Honour of Roy Miki

Passionate critic, principled citizen, attentive reader and editor, and energizing teacher – Roy Miki is all these and more, a poet whose ­writing articulates a moving body of work. The two main areas of his passionate research and writing – social critique and poetics – inform each other in these essays compiled to mark a milestone in the life of an important public intellectual.


Contributors from across North America take Miki’s literary and artistic achievements as a starting point for analytical and creative reflections on key artistic, social and political movements of the ­second half of the 20th century. Essays on poetics by Daphne Marlatt, Fred Wah, George Bowering, and Michael Barnholden, among others, explore topics from voice, to love, to translation. Mona Oikawa, Dave Gaertner, Phinder Dulai, and Cindy Mochizuki write on social justice, placing Miki’s redress work in relation to the politics and art of other historical reparations. Ashok Mathur, Aayaka Yoshimizu, Mark Nakada, David Fujino, and Hiromi Goto present ­various views of biotext, a term introduced by George Bowering in the late 1980s that refers to autobiographical text in between poetry and fiction. Jerry Zaslove, Susan Crean, Alessandra Capperdoni, and Smaro Kamboureli discuss the public intellectual’s relationship to institutions from the university to city hall. The collection ends with an interview with Miki on interrelations between his photographic and poetic ­practices.


Miki’s history reflects that of the West Coast’s literary world. Not only did he found the influential literary journal
West Coast Line, but he has researched and written works on poets Roy Kiyooka, George Bowering, and bp Nichol. Miki taught many of the poets and academics now working and writing on the West Coast.

Tabla de materias

Table of Contents


Introduction / The editors


Poetics


For Roy / Daphne Marlatt

Abdijection / Fred Wah

Abdijection 2 / Fred Wah

Voice / George Bowering

Love / George Bowering

Translation / George Bowering

The Hammer / Michael Barnholden

(in her ear) / Baco Ohama

“stuck in the acentred gesture”: Disabling Roy Miki’s Poetry / Nicole Markotic


Social Justice


Relations of Redress / Mona Oikawa

“Redress as a Gift”: Historical Reparations and the Logic of the Gift in Roy Miki’s Redress / Dave Gaertner

ASIANCY: Mapping the Literary / Phinder Dulai

Porous Praxis Script-in-Progress (a performance experiment) / The Sybils

Tottori City, 2009 / Cindy Mochizuki


Biotext


royologue / Ashok Mathur

homing / Ayaka Yoshimizu

Hono’uliuli Wire / Mark Nakada

Culturally Specific / David Fujino

The Daiso Stroll / Hiromi Goto



Institutions


An Open Letter: “Dear Generation”—Works and Days Tracing Roy Miki’s Generational Literacy in The University and the City / Jerry Zaslove

The Public Intellectual / Susan Crean

“This thing called language”: Reading and Writing in the Classroom / Alessandra Capperdoni

“i have altered my tactics to reflect the new era”: Public Intellectuals and Community / Smaro Kamboureli


Interview


Between the Photograph and the Poem: A Dialogue on Poetic Practice / Roy Miki in discussion with Kirsten Emiko Mc Allister


Contributors


Index