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- Subscribe - Contact Us - Rate Card - Place an Ad Archives Revels Classifieds Real Estate Menu Guide Wedding Weather Subscribe Contact Us March 11, 2006 Lawson Fusao Inada , a professor emeritus at Southern Oregon University, has been named Oregon’s poet laureate. Inada’s famous works include poems about the time he spent in American prison camps during World War II because of his Japanese heritage. Jim Craven | For the Tidings SOU’s resource, Oregon’s poet Inada named state’s poet laureate for two years By Chris Honoré Tidings Correspondent The journey of Lawson Fusao Inada, recently selected as Oregon’s Poet Laureate, is, for so many reasons, compelling. His is not a life spent in an ivory tower or a place apart; rather, Inada has banged into life, engaged it, taking his experiences and distilling them, creating a poetry of the vernacular style that is both illuminating and accessible. He was chosen not just as a writer possessing a wide breadth of talent, but as a man who has used language to edify and humanize. Born in 1938, in Fresno, Calif., he was a “Sensei,” or third-generation Japanese. He grew up in the embrace of a large extended family. Inada’s paternal grandparents were sharecroppers, his maternal grandfather started the Fresno Fish Store and his father was a dentist. In May of 1942, his family joined thousands of other Japanese families — most were American citizens, some, like Inada, third generation — who were rounded up and then confined, without habeas corpus, to internment camps throughout America for the duration of World War II. There was Manzanar and Tule Lake in California; Gila and Poston in Arizona; Rohwer and Jerome in Arkansas; Amache in Colorado; Heart Mountain in Wyoming; Minidoka in Idaho; and Topaz in Utah. More than 120,000 people were relocated to camps of profound starkness and austerity, of unimaginable degradation and hardship, the surviving images of those camps bleak and haunting. When the Inada family was told that they had to depart, they took what they could carry and left everything else behind. From Fresno, they were sent to Camp Jerome, in Arkansas. “The key thing,” Inada said, “was that we were uprooted. I was living in a nice, shady neighborhood, had all these relatives, I had a dog. The next thing I knew I had to leave everything and say goodbye to the dog. We were in the camps for three years, until I was seven.” In a poem titled “The Legend of Lost Boy” Inada writes: Lost Boy was his name. He had another name, a given name at another, given time and place but those were taken away. The road was taken away. The dog was taken away. The food was taken away. The house was taken away. The boy was taken away but he was not lost Oh, no, he knew exactly where he was ... From Camp Jerome, the family was sent to Camp Amache in Colorado, where they remained until the end of the war. In “Concentration Constellation,” referring to the memories of the camps, he writes: It sits there like a jagged scar, massive, on the massive landscape It lies there like the rusted wire of a twisted and remembered fence. Looking back, Inada said, “We’ve lived with the experience since, on a continual basis. And I’ve often wondered, ‘What does it all mean?’ History offers clues. Still, there’s a remoteness to history, and to simply know the facts is not always satisfactory. There’s more to life than that. So, you might say I’ve taken matters into my own hands, taken the camp experience in my hands, stood in the sun and held it up to the light. What did I find? What I expected to find: aspects of humanity, the human condition.” For Inada, holding the experience up to the light meant writing about it. He began to write seriously after taking a class from Philip Levine at Fresno State University. “He wanted us to try working in different genres,” Inada said. “I was right for writing poetry, it fit into my personality. When you write poetry, it’s something you focus on for brief, intense periods as opposed to writing novels. “There is something behind what I want to say that has intensity, and poetry is a wonderful, creative outlet. There is a muse, a spirit, and the poetry seems almost to write itself. It’s like a meditation, and sometimes you surprise yourself. When you’re in the zone it’s a wonder and a mystery.” A major influence on his poetics has been music, especially jazz and the improvisational rhythms of Thelonius Monk, Louis Armstrong, and John Coltrane. In one of his volumes of poetry, “Legends from Camp,” one section is titled “Jazz.” Inada said that in his neighborhood, in Fresno, there was a main library, but far across town. In the local cafes, however, were juke boxes, each filled with music that was jazz and blues. “It had a vitality to it that wasn’t the same as regular popular music,” Inada said. “I thought of those juke boxes as my library and regarded the music as a kind of spiritual experience which warmed my heart and inspired me. The music had power to it. Pop music was rather slick, rather mundane, but jazz of the time had a swing and a beat and a rhythm that I’ve tried to bring out in my poetry.” Inada has not allowed the experience of the camps to define him, though certainly it has framed his life in countless ways and been a wellspring for his work. He has also lived a life that has been rich and multifaceted. Beginning in 1966, he taught writing at Southern Oregon University, where he is an emeritus professor of writing. He has taught countless students over the years, conveying to them his love of language and poetry. He has conducted workshops and given readings, sometimes to musical accompaniment and has called performing poetry in concert with musicians his “favorite form of publishing.” All that he has done, all that he has accomplished, has been stitched together with an abiding optimism. When asked if, upon returning from the camps, the overwhelming injustice of it all hadn’t made him, at times, cynical and angry, he laughed and said no. When he returned to California, he looked around: all of the kids in his school seemed to be from somewhere else; the war had changed everything. And those he knew, his family, those in his neighborhood, the Armenians, the Germans, the Latinos, the Asian Americans, all were once again hard at work. Life went on and Inada chose to make a contribution. Inada was named to a two-year appointment as Poet Laureate of Oregon by Gov. Ted Kulongoski. He will be the fifth Poet Laureate in Oregon and the first to be so honored since William Stafford served until his death in 1983. “Lawson Inada is a beloved teacher,” said Kulongoski, “and someone who can involve other people of all sorts in reading, listening to and writing poetry. He has a long record of involvement in community projects in the arts and humanities, and he has done distinguished work in reclaiming the cultural heritage of Asian Americans. He’s a wonderful poet and a great communicator.” Christopher Zinn, one the cultural leaders who considered eight nominations for the position before making their recommendation to the governor, said, “Lawson Inada has an ambitious vision of what the laureate can accomplish, not simply through his own writing and reading, but by acting as an ‘orchestra conductor’ who can conduct community based and community oriented projects that will help people connect with poetry and with their community.” As Oregon’s designated poet laureate, involving others is exactly what Inada plans to do. He intends to share his love of poetry in all of its forms and rhythms. “My feeling is that to be Oregon’s Poet Laureate is an honor. But it’s not about me, it’s about getting people to participate in the creative experience. If people don’t get in touch with the poetry they have inside, it fades away.” DailyTidings.com Home Page Archives | Revels | Classifieds | Real Estate Guide | Weather | Subscribe | Contact Us Copyright 2005 Ashland Daily Tidings and Ottaway Newspapers All Rights Reserved Deep Muscle Stimulator Ceramic Piggy Banks FREE Entertainment Guide Women's & Men's Slippers Accelerate Weightloss Products Backpacks Online Pharmacy Vegas Travel Guide Search Engine Optimization Student Loans Hotel & Airline Reservations Hammocks Water Filter Helzberg Diamonds Online Casinos Community Bonus Casino Mortgage Calculator Security Systems Mailing Lists Click Here Advertisement .:Advertisements:. Site Search: RESOURCES - Mail Tribune News - ODOT Road Cams