Product Description

poetry & prose

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #579265 in Books
• Published on: 1992-07-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 112 pages

From Publishers Weekly
The preface to this volume presents an apologia of sorts: " . . . don't let the word poetry get in your way . . . this book is full of songs, paintings, photographs, prayers, and stories--that just happen to look like poetry." Inada, who co-edited The Big Aiiieeeee! , is correct in pointing this out; the work is what one might call populist writing, which has become fashionable along with the multicultural movement with which he associates himself as an "Ethnic Minority Third World Asian American Poet." His long opening section is a meditation on the Japanese internment camps during World War II. Unfortunately, the writing is not precise enough to convey a concrete sense of that experience. Generally these pieces are unsophisticated in tone, technique and conceptual structure, although at times the author's sunny disposition comes through. "Poem for Television" offers some characteristic writing: "Welcome to my poem. / Welcome to my home. / This is my song, my story,/ this is my tell-a-vision / to you . . . " Derivative of Whitman, but neither inventive nor sonorous, the writing is often intended for "community performance" in which music and dancing might bolster it.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
The preface to Inada's first book of poems since 1971 ( Before the War, LJ 1/1/71) begins by reassuring the reader: "Not to worry, please--this book is for you, whoever you may be, and this book is not intended to be 'for poetry people only.' " Indeed, the poems in the five sections that follow are playful, full of life, and easy to understand, even when the subject is somber--as in the first section, "Camp," which recounts the author's experience as a boy in the Japanese internment camps. The other four sections cover a wide array of subjects, from jazz, to life in Fresno, California, to love and family. Each section begins with a prose introduction that very effectively gives the reader a background for the poems that follow. Recommended for general collections.
- Jessica Grim, Oberlin Coll. Lib., Ohio
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review
Akatonbo Song
Appreciating Oregon
At The Stronghold
Billie Holiday
Bud Powell
Charlie Parker
Concentration Constellation
A Couple Of Geese Over Phoenix
The Discovery Of Tradition
Everything
Finding The Center
Fresno
From Left To Right
Headwaters
In So Doing
In The Stillness
In/vocation
Instructions To All Persons
Janet
Jazz
John Coltrane
The Journey South
Juxtapositions
Legends From Camp
Lester Young
Listening Images
Listening To Hmong Radio
Loading Feed In The Garage Parking Lot
Looking Back At Camp
Louis Armstrong
Memory
My Father And Myself Facing The Sun
A Night In The Valley
On Being Asian American
Poem For Television
Poems From Amache Camp
Poems In Stone
Rayford's Song
Re/collections
Red Earth, Blue Sky, Petrified
Seven Words Of Poetry
The Shovel People
Something Grand
Sweaty
Thelonious Monk In The Redwoods
The Theme
Things As They Are
To Get To Fresno
Turning It Over
Two Variations On A Theme By Thelonious Monk: 1. Blue Monk
Two Variations On A Theme By Thelonious Monk: 2. Blue Monk
-- Table of Poems from Poem Finder®

Customer Reviews

Legends from Camp
I had the great pleasure to hear Lawson Fusao Inada read some of his poems from this book. It is truly inspirational to catch a glimpse, through his words, of his view of the world. "Legends from Camp" contains poems inspired by his childhood in an internment camp for Japanese Americans during WWII, his home in the state of Oregon, and his love of Jazz. On the back cover of the book, Leslie Marmon Silko writes: "Inada's ear for the musicality of English is unsurpassed: Legends from Camp is a veritable symphony you must not miss." This is so true.