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After We Lost Our Way
A reissuing of After We Lost Our Way, poems by David Mura.
- GenresPoetryAsian American
80 pages, Paperback
First published May 25, 1989
23 people want to read
About the author
David Mura
28 books50 followersDavid Mura (born 1952) is a Japanese American author, poet, novelist, playwright, critic and performance artist. He has published two memoirs, Turning Japanese: Memoirs of a Sansei, which won the Josephine Miles Book Award from the Oakland PEN and was listed in the New York Times Notable Books of the Year, and Where the Body Meets Memory: An Odyssey of Race, Sexuality and Identity (1995). His most recent book of poetry is The Last Incantation (2014); his other poetry books include After We Lost Our Way, which won the National Poetry Contest, The Colors of Desire (winner of the Carl Sandburg Literary Award), and Angels for the Burning. His novel is Famous Suicides of the Japanese Empire (Coffee House Press, 2008). His writings explore the themes of race, identity and history. His blog is blog.davidmura.com.
David Mura was born in 1952 and grew up in Chicago, the oldest of four children. He is a third generation Japanese American son of parents interned during World War II. Mura earned his B.A. from Grinnell College and his M.F.A. in creative writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts. He has taught at the University of Minnesota, St. Olaf College, The Loft Literary Center, and the University of Oregon. He currently resides in Saint Paul, Minnesota, with his wife Susan Sencer and their three children; Samantha, Nikko and Tomo.
(from Wikipedia)
David Mura was born in 1952 and grew up in Chicago, the oldest of four children. He is a third generation Japanese American son of parents interned during World War II. Mura earned his B.A. from Grinnell College and his M.F.A. in creative writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts. He has taught at the University of Minnesota, St. Olaf College, The Loft Literary Center, and the University of Oregon. He currently resides in Saint Paul, Minnesota, with his wife Susan Sencer and their three children; Samantha, Nikko and Tomo.
(from Wikipedia)
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June 30, 2020Two poetry collections I read over the past couple months were After We Lost Our Way by David Mura and Sông I Sing by Bao Phi. Both of these collections are written by local Minnesota men of color, 1.5 or 3rd generation Americans, struggling to reconcile their ethnic, national, and racial identities in the aftermath of a war.
Mura's poems reflect much of the devastation of Japanese internment camps and the aftermath of the second World War. He also reflects a lot on queerness, adultery, and forbidden love. He writes poems dedicated to his family, who had suffered through the internment camps and poems dedicated to people he met along the way.
Phi’s diasporic poems hit a little closer to home for me. My parents also arrived in the U.S. just after the end of the Vietnam War, a little lost after refugee camps. His poems reflect an agonizing anger that I find relatable and that I’m sure, many of youth of color that I work with, will as well.
It’s interesting to see almost a cyclic pattern in these two poetry collections. Mura, Japanese American, writing about the inequality after the second war and the effect of the internment camps on Japanese Americans like him. Phi, Vietnamese American, writing about the frustrations of his culture being taken away, about being forced to assimilate. They each have their own unique experiences, but there were also similar experiences shared between the two men. It makes me wonder if there’s already a collection of poems written by a Hmong American out there. Or Karen American.
These two poetry collections gave insight to the struggles of men of color in a post-war world, allowing them to reconcile their identities, how the privileged world reacts to their sense of self, and how they choose to revolutionize. I’m not sure if this is the right term for it, but I feel like these books best fit into the trauma literature genre.
I am particularly attached to “Fusion,” one of Bao Phi’s poems. I’ll share it with anyone who wants to read it, but would like to take some space to reflect on it.
It makes me think about the role of food in culture and how important it is. It makes me think about how others perceive “weird” or “strange” food, foods normally not accustomed to them. It reminds me of the first time I had Western food, reminds me of how I thought hash browns looked disgusting and how it looked like crumpled boogers. I'm sure there are plenty of others like me who thought the same.
My dad used to eat out a lot and his food of choice was phở because it was good and it was cheap. And despite taking endless hours to brew the broth to the right depth of taste, and despite choosing the best cuts of beef and rice noodles, it was cheap because the culinary world said so. Until they decided it was good enough to make it into their five-star restaurants. And then my dad stopped eating phở as much because it was no longer feasible to.
Another poem that I felt fit the people we're working with is called "Giving My Neighbor a Ride to Her Job" also by Bao Phi. It briefly touches on gentrification, diaspora, similar experiences, and the idealization of whiteness.
"Giving My Neighbor a Ride to Her Job"
I emerge from 103 at the same time she does from 106.
The hallways full of blondes
whitewashing the walls.
We’ve never seen this many white people in the building before.
Has gentrification already hit this side of Dale?
Did someone plant a bomb
that exploded with blonde people while we slept?
One of them tells me it’s the U of M women’s rowing team,
volunteering.
My neighbor asks me for a ride to work, usually her husband
comes home around when she has to leave,
but today he is stranded with a grumpy alternator.
She is Somali. I am Vietnamese. How long have you been here?
Between us this is not offensive. Five years. You? Twenty-six.
She speaks English like my mother.
Her son will speak English like me.
She likes Minnesota.
I don’t have the heart to tell her that her son
probably won’t.
We don’t use the word refugee. Somalia, Viet Nam,
both far away, both missed.
In the theaters, Black Hawk Down and We Were Soldiers play
across whitewashed screens.
One day she will have to tell her son he doesn’t have to be like Joshua Hartnett
to be a hero.
If I ever have a daughter I will have to tell her
that she does not have to love someone the same color as Mel Gibson
to be beautiful.
Words fill my car.
Laughter untranslated.
Languages beautiful.
Together here, we are not broken.
Mura's poems reflect much of the devastation of Japanese internment camps and the aftermath of the second World War. He also reflects a lot on queerness, adultery, and forbidden love. He writes poems dedicated to his family, who had suffered through the internment camps and poems dedicated to people he met along the way.
Phi’s diasporic poems hit a little closer to home for me. My parents also arrived in the U.S. just after the end of the Vietnam War, a little lost after refugee camps. His poems reflect an agonizing anger that I find relatable and that I’m sure, many of youth of color that I work with, will as well.
It’s interesting to see almost a cyclic pattern in these two poetry collections. Mura, Japanese American, writing about the inequality after the second war and the effect of the internment camps on Japanese Americans like him. Phi, Vietnamese American, writing about the frustrations of his culture being taken away, about being forced to assimilate. They each have their own unique experiences, but there were also similar experiences shared between the two men. It makes me wonder if there’s already a collection of poems written by a Hmong American out there. Or Karen American.
These two poetry collections gave insight to the struggles of men of color in a post-war world, allowing them to reconcile their identities, how the privileged world reacts to their sense of self, and how they choose to revolutionize. I’m not sure if this is the right term for it, but I feel like these books best fit into the trauma literature genre.
I am particularly attached to “Fusion,” one of Bao Phi’s poems. I’ll share it with anyone who wants to read it, but would like to take some space to reflect on it.
It makes me think about the role of food in culture and how important it is. It makes me think about how others perceive “weird” or “strange” food, foods normally not accustomed to them. It reminds me of the first time I had Western food, reminds me of how I thought hash browns looked disgusting and how it looked like crumpled boogers. I'm sure there are plenty of others like me who thought the same.
My dad used to eat out a lot and his food of choice was phở because it was good and it was cheap. And despite taking endless hours to brew the broth to the right depth of taste, and despite choosing the best cuts of beef and rice noodles, it was cheap because the culinary world said so. Until they decided it was good enough to make it into their five-star restaurants. And then my dad stopped eating phở as much because it was no longer feasible to.
Another poem that I felt fit the people we're working with is called "Giving My Neighbor a Ride to Her Job" also by Bao Phi. It briefly touches on gentrification, diaspora, similar experiences, and the idealization of whiteness.
"Giving My Neighbor a Ride to Her Job"
I emerge from 103 at the same time she does from 106.
The hallways full of blondes
whitewashing the walls.
We’ve never seen this many white people in the building before.
Has gentrification already hit this side of Dale?
Did someone plant a bomb
that exploded with blonde people while we slept?
One of them tells me it’s the U of M women’s rowing team,
volunteering.
My neighbor asks me for a ride to work, usually her husband
comes home around when she has to leave,
but today he is stranded with a grumpy alternator.
She is Somali. I am Vietnamese. How long have you been here?
Between us this is not offensive. Five years. You? Twenty-six.
She speaks English like my mother.
Her son will speak English like me.
She likes Minnesota.
I don’t have the heart to tell her that her son
probably won’t.
We don’t use the word refugee. Somalia, Viet Nam,
both far away, both missed.
In the theaters, Black Hawk Down and We Were Soldiers play
across whitewashed screens.
One day she will have to tell her son he doesn’t have to be like Joshua Hartnett
to be a hero.
If I ever have a daughter I will have to tell her
that she does not have to love someone the same color as Mel Gibson
to be beautiful.
Words fill my car.
Laughter untranslated.
Languages beautiful.
Together here, we are not broken.
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