August 26, 2019
A letter-poem from Amy Uyematsu to poet, Lawson Fusao Inada
Dear Lawson
— after seeing “I Told You So,” Alan Kondo's 1974 film on Lawson Inada
Did you know you were the very first
poet I ever heard? Round about 1970 -
UCLA, early guest speaker in
Asian American Studies - you
were one of us – angry, young, militant -
and yet you weren't. You “talked the talk”
but only like a poet who plays upright bass
and loves straight ahead jazz. Man,
you sure knew how to riff.
With a bebop ear, you
embraced “yellow power” too -
ranting about the “E.H.W.” -
Eternal Honkies of the World -
or proclaiming:
Wake up – we are king
kong over this world
and
sing! Think Yellow!
You even gave us homework -
write poems using loaded words
like “media,” “Asian,” “identity.”
I went home and did just that -
been writing poems ever since.
The first poetry book I bought
was Before the War - just five bucks.
Its dust jacket, torn from so much use,
pictures you on the back -
serious, wearing your signature beret
as you sit in front of a sign demanding
“Fresno Needs a Progressive Leader.”
Still in my early twenties, I had a major crush
on Toshiro Mifune – but Lawson, you
were the hero that changed me.
Just last month I saw you for the first time
on film in “I Told You So.” Hope you don't mind
my saying there's a bit of a gangsta strut
as you walk the sidewalks of downtown Fresno.
Cool as ever in your turtle neck, wool cap,
slightly flared denims, looking at old Westside
(no stanza break)
signs - “Nisei Barber Shop,” “Azteca,”
“El Gato Negro Cafe” - walls filled with
neighborhood graffiti and Chicano murals -
singing,
I told you so, oh yes...I told you so, oh yes.
Your poems salute so many jazz greats -
like Mingus, Coltrane, Parker, Monk.
You even got Billie Holiday's autograph
when you were eighteen and tell us
it was around that time you began
writing poetry -
Then start the music playing -
thick jazz, strong jazz -
and notice that the figure
comes to life:
sweating, growling
over an imaginary bass -
My friend Taiji, who also plays
double bass, says he hears jazz
whenever you perform.
But what the name Lawson Inada
means most to me is all you've
written about the concentration camps
and our history as Japanese Americans.
Just a sansei kid in Rohwer and Amache,
you depict our unjust imprisonment
with wisdom and outrage, unblinking
truth and musical eloquence:
Mud in the barracks -
a muddy room, a chamber pot.
Mud in the moats
around each barracks group.
Mud on the shoes
trudging to the mess hall.
And I suspect you're addressing
a lot of us “movement” sansei
(no stanza break)
when you write:
People ask: “Why didn't you protest?”
Well, you might say: “They had hostages.”
You so rightly attest -
And the people
made poetry
from camp.
And the people
made poetry
in camp.
Yes, “the people made poetry” –
our determination to create beauty
in defiance of barbed wire jails,
so much art and artifacts made with hands
and hearts - the bonsai gardens, wood carvings,
sketches and paintings, furniture, tankas,
jewelry - using whatever we could find.
I told you so, oh yes...I told you so
Thank you, Lawson, for celebrating
men like Yosh Kuromiya,
Heart Mountain draft resistor -
Arrested, judged,
sentenced, imprisoned
…
for refusing
induction
Back in the day, do you remember
a lot of us carried Mao's “little red book,”
espoused the idea of art “for the people.”
Well, your poetry comes from exactly that place –
our issei and nisei roots, the camps, a uniquely
American history of struggle and resistance.
No wonder so many of us have grown
from your words.
And as we used to sign off, Lawson -
All power.