Navigating With(out) Instruments

by Traci Kato-Kiriyama

With their second book, Navigating With(out) Instruments, traci kato-kiriyama uses her present-political unrest, family love and loss, her own cancer diagnosis-to join the traumas of the past generations with the hope of the future ones. Often seamless, often with a loud bang, kato-kiriyama moves from genre to genre, from poetry to essays to plays and to letters, framed by the history of US colonialism and war mongering, to urge readers to protect and to share their legacies, both personal and communal, as a means of global survival.

Genres: Poetry, Asian American

262 pages, Paperback

Published December 1, 2021

Reviews

[maia ‼️ · Rating 5 out of 5]

i think tkk’s words and presence have changed me …maybe forever!

[Nikolai Garcia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Points for being an L.A. book; extra points for making me cry on the train.

[elaine · Rating 5 out of 5]

tkk detailed this book everything i love about the space in Little Tokyo (Tuesday Night Project) they carved out with their homies for the young ones like me

The micro essays were lit a fire in my belly, making me want to do art. It seems like fate--the year I decided to actually Try To Do An Art Thing, for myself not for others, is the year tkk released this book.

I will remember N.T.theQuestioning-of-Self-Artist forever

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

A beautiful collection of love letters and remembrances to self, family, and community.

[Kris (My Novelesque Life) · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5

[Heidi · Rating 5 out of 5]

A bomb and a balm.

If that doesn’t speak to all the ways this book is necessary, I don’t know what does.