Two Poems

Visit the WLT website to read Todd Stewart’s photo-essay on the conjunction of geography, autobiography, and metaphor in Inada’s work. above Todd Stewart, “Fence Line, Tule Lake Relocation Center, 2001,” from Placing Memory: A Photographic Exploration of Japanese American Internment (University of Oklahoma Press, 2008). Lawson Fusao Inada was born in Fresno, California, and as a child during World War II, he was imprisoned in California, Arkansas, and Colorado. His books of poetry include Before the War, Legends from Camp, and Drawing the Line. He has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Guggenheim Foundation, and has served as poet laureate of Oregon. 22 worldliteraturetoday.org Eating Noodles Even though it is cold outside, the windows of the noodle shop are covered with humid warmth as the columns of fragrant steam arise from bowls of broth. The crowd, of course, is busy – children, adults, the very elderly eating, conversing in non-English – and as chopsticks lift the noodles there is a momentary pause to blow on the dangling strands, and each pause becomes a moment of gratitude and wonder, like a salute to our culture, like an offering to our history, for although we may be strangers, we have managed to make our way to 82nd Avenue, in Portland, to gather once again as a group to enjoy life while eating noodles. Two Poems Lawson Fusao Inada November–December 2014 • 23 To This Day Have you ever wondered whatever happened to all the barbed wire that defined and confined the so-called camp at Tule Lake? That’s a good question we have a right to ask as ordinary tax-paying citizens: “Whatever happened to all that barbed wire?” When you think about it, the very idea of fencing such an expense of land was a daunting challenge for all those concerned because it wasn’t easy to coordinate “back East” planning with “out West” implementation, along with the manufacture and transportation of materials from all points in between. And it was also an innovative undertaking, a historical precedent, because this fence was to confine, not cattle or criminals, but residents of the American West, who, in the western tradition, were to be “rounded up,” and “herded” into fenced areas – Tule Lake being but one such place. Now, thinking about barbed wire, it could be easy to consider related matters that would take us off into a tangent about, oh, fence posts and other such aspects of construction, sidetracking us into thinking about cutting forests for fence posts, and all the effort, energy, expense involved in the overall venture – including catered lunches for planning meetings sequestered in the “red tape” of D.C. – so let’s just focus on the wire that arrived by train on huge spools, I suppose, ready to be unloaded by many men with machines who would then, over days, depending on weather, erect the barbed wire fence. And let’s keep going forward, like the war effort, not backward to the origins of the wire that would include iron ore, iron mines, steel mills, all the sweat, smoke, steam, shoveling, smelting, stamping of the extensive process of manufacturing wire and then barbing it; Yes, let’s keep going forward, like the war effort not backward to the origins of the war, or to the barb wire trenches of the First World War, but to the brand-new barbed wire fence of Tule Lake. The wire was gleaming in the sun! And with all those barbs – thousands upon thousands – all those strands were sparkling! As we can imagine – the fence was really something! And just imagine – from the air, the shining structure may have resembled – a gigantic musical instrument, that storms and raging winds would strum and pluck . . . At any rate, whatever happened to all that barbed wire? It’s all gone somewhere, somehow, obviously, which is a good thing; otherwise, it would pose a hazard for wildlife, and rusted barbs could cause tetanus in humans . . . especially children. So perhaps it’s immaterial to dwell on such material matters like rusted wire of the past; rather, as we can imagine, in this advanced day and age, there just might be

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