Fallen World – Pat Matsueda

Buy Nothing DayInfinite image of the day.
(Yesterday was the big protest day against consumer culture but I decided to extend the buy nothing day to one more day.)

Pat Mastsueda’s book of poems – Stray is coming out in January.

“Pat Matsueda was born in Fukuoka Prefecture in Japan, the daughter of a Japanese woman and a Japanese American soldier. She now resides in downtown Honolulu. In 1988, she received an Elliott Cades Award for Literature”.

“There are about three dozen poems in the book, and the styles and subjects vary quite a bit. Below is a short poem that you may want to consider; like many in the book, it draws on my life. ” (Via email)

Fallen World

What is no longer there
I can still see

Where shade was,
shadows fell
I still know
Where groves were,
white roots now
bind the earth

And all my young selves-
shamed, battered, raped-
still look through my eyes

and answer to my name

Pat Matsueda
You can “Stray”Stray and buy this.
More on her and a photo of Pat with her colleagues at
Kyoto Journal – Revealing The Invisible
Frank Stewart & Patricia Matsueda of Mãnoa, on expanding cultural horizons.

“PM: For me, a favorite issue is Silence to Light: Japan and the Shadows of War, which is all about Japan in WWII. A few of the pieces come from that period, and others were written afterwards. That is one of the most important issues that we have done, because the subject of the war is so large, complicated, and emotional. Japan’s behavior during WWII was really abominable, but if you read Silence to Light from cover to cover, you’ll see that the pieces arouse a lot of sympathy for the Japanese. They were victims of war too. Nicholas Voge’s translation of a group of letters written by kamikaze pilots to their families was reprinted in two British newspapers and in Harper’s magazine. Soon after 9/11 happened, we were contacted about reprinting them. I think people found those letters of great power and relevance.”

Manoa Journal linked at sidebar menu under “firelingue”.