Encyclopedia of Asian-American Literature

Mueller, 36–52. Madison, N.J.: Fairleigh Dicken-

son University Press, 2003.

Joel Kuortti

Matsueda, Pat (1952– )
Poet and editor Patricia Tomoko Matsueda was
born on August 20, 1952, on an air force base in
Kyushu, Fukuoka Prefecture, Japan. She is the au-
thor of four books of poetry and has served as edi-
tor for a range of publications including Manoa: A
Pacific Journal of International Writing, for which
she has been managing editor since 1992. Matsue-
da’s mother was a Japanese national, and her fa-
ther was a Japanese-American sergeant in the U.S.
Air Force. Shortly after her parents’ divorce, Mat-
sueda, her mother, and sister settled in Honolulu,
Hawaii. Matsueda received a B.A. in English from
the University of Hawaii, and she continues to live
in Honolulu.
Critics consider Matsueda to be an important
figure in Hawaiian literature. She has been instru-
mental in developing Hawaiian poetry as well as in
creating venues for the publication of Pacific Rim
literature. Matsueda’s first poem appeared in the
1978 inaugural issue of Bamboo Ridge, a literary
journal that helped lead institutional efforts to pub-
lish Hawaiian local writing. She subsequently pub-
lished three books of poetry: The Return (1978), X
(1983), and The Fish Catcher (1985). In 1988 Mat-
sueda received the Hawaii Literary Art Council’s
Elliot Cades Award for Literature. Her fourth book
of poetry, St ray, was published in 2006.
Between 1977 and 1980, Matsueda edited the
Hawaii Literary Arts Council Newsletter, and in
1981 she cofounded and acted as editor-in-chief
for The Paper, an early Hawaii literary journal
that published Hawaiian writing including pid-
gin-oriented writing, for over six years. Matsueda
has also served as an editor for Houghton Mifflin’s
academic division. Perhaps one of her most last-
ing contributions to the field of Pacific Rim litera-
ture outside of her own poetry is her work with
Manoa. Founded in 1989, Manoa is a biannual lit-
erary journal that publishes both Asia-Pacific and
American writing. Just as Manoa began to pay in-

creasing attention to works in translation or works

that were relatively unfamiliar to audiences on ei-

ther side of the Pacific, Matsueda became in 1992

the journal’s first full-time managing editor.

Matsueda’s work has received little attention

in Asian-American literary criticism, probably

because her work primarily explores the Hawaii-

Japan connection rather than Asian-American

experiences within the United States. Moreover,

many of her poems have little to do with Asian-

American culture as such; instead, they treat

broader questions of aesthetics.

Matsueda seems interested in demonstrating the

fluidity between the points of reference—whether

they are body and mind, Japan and America, geog-

raphy and abstraction, or other associations—and

the possibility of becoming familiar with other

identities and experiences. For example, a charac-

ter and an object may take on completely distinct

qualities, but the character’s feeling or thought can

be represented through that same object, or the

object may take on human characteristics. This in-

terest in materials and abstractions comes through

in her poetic form, which Jared Carter describes

as enlisting the visuality of poetry to interact with

poetic content.

Bibliography

Carter, Jared. “Poetry Chapbooks: Back to the Ba-

sics.” Georgia Review 40, no. 2 (Summer 1986):

532–547.

Leong, Lavonne. “Pat Matsueda.” Asian American

Poets: A Bio-Bibliographical Critical Sourcebook,

edited by Guiyou Huang. Westport, Conn.: Green-

wood Press, 2002.

Ronck, Ronn. “Farewell to the Paper.” Literary Arts

Hawaii 83 (New Year 1987): 4–6.

Marguerite Nguyen

Matsuoka, Takashi (1954– )

Born in Japan, Takashi Matsuoka was raised in

Hawaii. He now lives in Honolulu, where, prior

to becoming a full-time writer, he was employed

at a Zen Buddhist temple. He is the author of the

acclaimed novel Clouds of Sparrows (2002), which

184 Matsueda, Pat