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In Village Scene/Village Herd, Yasuo Sasaki offers (sometimes tongue-in-cheek) commentary on various aspects of everyday life.

What I liked:

• Up to this point, the poetry I’ve read for Book Spotlight was written by poets for whom the craft of poetry seems to be a primary goal or theme of their lives – by which I mean, their “day” job is also closely related to poetry. I don’t know much about Yasuo Sasaki, but the note at the end of the book indicates he was a doctor. Stylistically, Sasaki’s poetry is strikingly different from that of other poets I’ve read. Since I’m not a poetry craft expert, I don’t know if this difference is a lack of technical skill (though for poets of color, the criteria for ranking “skill” seems to be deliberately and consistently fluid, especially in recent discussions), or if Sasaki’s personal style is simply far removed from other poets I’ve read, or if Sasaki’s poems were typical of the period in which they were originally published, or if there is some other reason altogether. At any rate, Sasaki’s style is a startling but refreshing change (for context, the last book of poetry I read is Lukao by Craig Santos Perez – which was amazing, I recommend it).
• The pun in the title is probably immediately obvious to most readers, but I didn’t notice it until I was sitting down to read the book. It made me laugh, as did Sasaki’s sly humor in many of his poems.
• Sasaki’s tone is very matter-of-fact, which strikes me as quintessentially Japanese American – though in Sasaki’s case, his topics and themes are definitely reflective of his generation. Although I wouldn’t say Sasaki’s book is perfect, I enjoyed it for what it is to me – a vivid example of one Japanese American writer’s perspective on life and a window into a previous time.

What I learned:

• The poem “Gunman” made me think about ongoing, state-sanctioned police violence against Black and Brown people. What would Sasaki have thought about the murder of George Floyd? What would Sasaki have considered the appropriate response of nikkei/Japanese American communities to movements like Black Lives Matter?

Questions I had:

• Would Sasaki have identified himself as a nikkei and/or Japanese American writer? If not, what kind of writer did he identify as? Did he envision his poems as having a place in nikkei and/or Japanese American literature? What opinion, if any, did he have of the concept of nikkei and/or Japanese American literature? How would he have felt about the currently ongoing movements to diversify literature and support marginalized writers?
• I tried to give Sasaki the benefit of the doubt in his jokes, because I know nothing about his personal life, but some of his poems made me wonder if he would be supportive of the currently ongoing movements for sex and gender inclusivity.

Follow-up:

• I need to read more books by nikkei writers of previous generations, particularly more books by nikkei writers working immediately before and immediately after JA incarceration, to expand my understanding of how trends in nikkei literature have developed over time. I want to say there is already a nikkei-authored book which examines the extent to which JA incarceration and/or the concept of “camp” shaped the subsequent trajectory of nikkei literature, but if not, I look forward to the day when a nikkei writer publishes one (as long as there is no white co-writer/editor – please let that trend die ASAP). I believe Asian American Writers Workshop did a roundtable discussion on their website where they interviewed a group of Asian writers about “camp,” but I do not think it was specific to nikkei writers and/or JA incarceration.