of the red berries they so desire. Such inequalities
of American culture are foregrounded in all of
Mirikitani’s poetry. The Japanese-American ex-
perience in the severe desert conditions of some
internment camps is the subject of many poems,
including “Tule Lake.” The Vietnam War, and the
atrocities perpetrated there, is explored in poems
such as “Loving from Vietnam to Zimbabwe.”
As a child, Mirikitani suffered sexual abuse at
the hands of family members and was forced to
keep silent about those traumatic events. In Shed-
ding Silence: Poetry and Prose (1987), which in-
cludes 35 poems, some short stories, and a short
play entitled “Shedding Silence,” physical and emo-
tional abuses of all kinds, along with the continued
themes of racism, are the subjects of the work. The
first section of the book focuses on racism, the sec-
ond on the author’s marriages (her first to a white
man, her second to Cecil Williams, an African
American to whom she has been married since the
1960s). Two concluding sections are more politi-
cal in nature. Mirikitani’s method of directly con-
fronting taboo subjects forces readers out of any
misconceptions they may have about the ability
of poetry to address fiery issues. The book’s first
poem, “Without Tongue,” explores a character who
is unable to speak about her father’s sexual assaults
against her. She buries the knife she has stolen so
that she will kill neither him nor herself. The blade
of the knife is as silent as her own tongue.
In all her poems, the Japanese-American expe-
rience is the focus of her exploration of universal
subjects such as assaults on women, children, dis-
enfranchised peoples of all strands, and even the
planet itself. Mirikitani’s goal is to break the si-
lence that keeps too many victims powerless: She
offers a tongue to those who cannot use theirs.
“Breaking Silence” focuses on the poet’s mother,
who, many years after her experience in the in-
ternment camps, breaks her silence before a con-
gressional hearing.
In We, the Dangerous: New and Selected Poems
(1995), Mirikitani continues her protest against
the oppression that comes from gender inequality,
stereotypes, and violence. The poems in this vol-
ume are painful to read, for they vividly capture
the violation of body, mind, and soul caused by
child rape, racism, and cultural degradation. A fre-
quently anthologized poem, “Recipe” underlines
the worthlessness often felt by U.S. minorities. The
narrator, a young Asian-American girl, provides
instructions that will ensure the creation of round
Caucasian eyes from narrow Asian ones. The final
instruction, “Do not cry,” is especially poignant in
that the narrator is willing to withstand physical
pain because it is better to conform to the major-
ity dictum of beauty than to be true to the ethnic
beauty one may already have.
On March 30, 2000, Mirikitani was appointed
as San Francisco’s second Poet Laureate. Her in-
augural address and other poems that address a
wide range of subjects are included in Love Works,
published in 2002. In an address to the congrega-
tion of Glide Church, Mirikitani said that many of
the poems in the collection are about “the journey
of discovering love.” “Obachan’s Ozoni,” a poem
about her grandmother’s New Year’s Day soup,
celebrates the Japanese-American traditions that
help anchor the lives of so many immigrants and
their descendants. Food continues as a theme in
the book, as Mirikitani commemorates a tradi-
tion that she and her husband keep: a combina-
tion of her favorite Japanese raw fish dishes and
his favorite soul food. In “Bad Women,” Mirikitani
celebrates strong women, mothers, grandmothers,
and sisters who unite to heal and help one another.
The poem is a paean to the soul-nurturing feasts
that these women prepare for their loved ones,
even as they are resisting “violent love affairs, child
abuse, and unsafe sex.”
Because Mirikitani is seeking to break the cycle
of violence that is set into motion by the keeping
of silence, her tone is often angry and aggressive,
and her subject matter harsh and unyielding. As
Deirdre Lashgare says, Mirikitani’s poetry chal-
lenges the reader not only to feel sorrow, rage, and
horror at the violence against helpless victims, but
to act upon these emotions. Mirikitani’s poetry ex-
tends its boundaries to the lives of all Americans,
not just Asian Americans.Bibliography
Grotjohn, Robert. “Remapping Internment: A Postco-
lonial Reading of Mitsuke Yamada, Lawson FusaoMirikitani, Janice 193