The Crane Wife

by Sharon Hashimoto

The Crane Wife was selected from more than eight hundred entries. This brilliant debut volume explores and celebrates the author's Japanese heritage in the great Northwest. From "Because You Showed Me a Piece of Barbed Wire"
Because you showed me a piece of barbed wire
that had lain on the road
beside a lone sign
marking all that remained of -barracks,
rowed and eclipsed by the shadow
of Heart Mountain, I thought
of my mother beginning her tour of Japan. What
would she say if she saw me with a piece of her past
cupped in her hand? Sharon Hashimoto is a writing instructor at Highline Community College in Midway, Washington.

96 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 2003

Reviews

[Tim Lepczyk · Rating 1 out of 5]

Most of these poems felt extremely flat. They didn't take you anywhere new, just plodded toward the expected. Sometimes it seemed as if the writer had an idea in mind for a short story or just a vignette, but didn't know how to expand on it and shoved it into the form of a poem with line breaks. The poems that were memorable and good were a selection about a plane crash. The poems were juxtaposed against excerpts from the news and explored the crash as a whole from those searching, those who survived, and the people who died.

[Fran · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book inspired a great Decemberist's tune "The Crane Wife" which sparked my desire to read it. It is BEAUTIFULLY written and illustrated and a great read for kids. Check it out...

[Kate Gray · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sharon Hashimoto has a keen ear for the lyrical, for the compression of sounds and lines. She is a sculptor of moments. This collection of poems is one to be studied and emulated.