Anyone who believes that the haiku must stick only to nature, and to do this in a purple, fairyland sort of way, is, upon opening this book, in for a rude-or I should say a very pleasant-awakening. Yes, there is plenty of nature in the poems of r. y. takagi's book, but there is much more, for he deals with the bleakest chapter in the history of Japanese-American life: the forced internment, during World War II, of thousands of innocent people, whether U.S. citizens or not, to "relocation centers." Takagi describes the ...
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Anyone who believes that the haiku must stick only to nature, and to do this in a purple, fairyland sort of way, is, upon opening this book, in for a rude-or I should say a very pleasant-awakening. Yes, there is plenty of nature in the poems of r. y. takagi's book, but there is much more, for he deals with the bleakest chapter in the history of Japanese-American life: the forced internment, during World War II, of thousands of innocent people, whether U.S. citizens or not, to "relocation centers." Takagi describes the tragedy of this lost generation with humor, honesty, and insight. For fifty years after the war he remained silent about what he and his family had endured in those primitive camps, and these poems are products of the last 20 or so years of his life, when he finally felt free to speak his truth about injustice. There are also touching poems about his family, his childhood years, the friends who aged with him, and the sights and smells of life around him. This is Takagi's only book and it's a memorable one, both for what it explicitly depicts and for what it gently, beautifully, leaves unsaid.
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