by Claire Kageyama-Ramakrishnan
Four Way Books, 2011
Paper: 978-1-935536-13-0
Library of Congress Classification PS3611.A345B43 2011
Dewey Decimal Classification 811.6

ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | TOC
ABOUT THIS BOOK
Bear, Diamonds and Crane depicts the sansei, the grandchildren of Japanese immigrants to America in villanelles, haiku, and lyric poems collaged from family letters. Kageyama-Ramakrishnan recounts her relatives’ internment in Manzanar, the California concentration camp where Japanese Americans were imprisoned during World War II. Honoring Sadako Sasaki, who, “after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, / […] folded / a thousand cranes/ for world peace,” Bear, Diamonds and Crane looks to the yonsei (fourth generation) to transform “the wound” that “resists erasure and cultural amnesia”: “For you, I will keep the ripe weight,/ […]/ The limes and climbing wisteria vines.”

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