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Ryka Aoki’s poems in Why Dust Shall Never Settle Upon This Soul illuminate, celebrate, mourn, and caringly affirm the experiences of trans people.

What I liked:

• Aoki’s voice and style are enjoyably colloquial and familiar. Although many of Aoki’s topics and experiences vary greatly from my own, the poems are extremely readable and I would not be surprised if readers of all backgrounds felt the same.
• I’m finding it difficult to articulate my thoughts on Aoki’s depiction of trans experiences in these poems, without falling into the trap of a cis person objectifying or projecting onto trans experiences, so I’ll merely say I deeply appreciate Aoki’s meditations on the everyday experience of being trans and I hope fellow cis nikkei readers will read Aoki as well.
• What is Aoki’s favorite donut? I also like donuts; I appreciated seeing donuts pop up in several of her poems. Has any nikkei scholar studied the relationship between food and nikkei identity formation? The other day, an Asian American colleague suggested boba is an identity marker for a certain demographic of Asian Americans. I had never heard this before, but it got me thinking about how individuals utilize specific foods to cultivate their image. For example, when nikkei writers talk about food and family history, certain foods tend to appear over and over. Practically speaking, these commonalities can probably be attributed to geographic and temporal factors, but from a creative standpoint, to what extent do nikkei writers utilize these commonalities to craft a specific narrative? From a different angle, I also think of foods which commonly appear in certain manga genres, usually to further a relationship between the main characters. Obviously, these two disparate discussions are much too broad for this post, but this is where my mind went while reading about Aoki’s donuts.
• I enjoyed Aoki’s foreword, particularly the section about the relationship between truth and poetry. I wonder if this is also why I gravitate toward reading poetry at times when I cannot handle reading a novel.

What I learned:

• What exactly does it mean to be nikkei in LA and/or SoCal? Is it going too far to suggest nikkei proactively define, to some extent, regional nikkei identities? While reading Aoki’s poems, I was very aware of Aoki’s experience of being trans in LA and of how intensely Aoki observes and responds to her surroundings. It would be interesting to read a book of poems written while Aoki is in a different city, perhaps somewhere like Tokyo, to see how much her content and style fluctuate in response to the environment.

Questions I had:

• How does Aoki situate herself and her work in the existing body of nikkei literature? Trans nikkei seem to be severely underrepresented in mainstream US publishing, within even the sparse field of contemporary nikkei writers, particularly novelists. (Note: This does not absolve me from not being more proactive in seeking out existing trans nikkei writers, in both mainstream and independent publishing.) Additionally, has Aoki encountered transphobia from other nikkei writers? Is nikkei literature as a whole a safe and supportive environment for trans and/or LGBTQIA+ nikkei writers? Are there steps the nikkei community can take to ensure more trans nikkei writers have the opportunity to break into mainstream publishing? I can think of rather more gay/queer nikkei writers (specifically, of gay/queer nikkei writers who do not also identify as trans) than trans nikkei writers, which makes me wonder to what extent trans nikkei writers encounter barriers within the nikkei community (and also outside the nikkei community) that gay/queer nikkei writers do not.
• Did Aoki envision a particular audience for these poems?

Follow-up:

• I’m looking forward to Aoki’s SFF novel, which releases this fall.
• I absolutely need to read more trans nikkei writers. No excuses.