Poetry. Asian & Asian American Studies. Brandon Shimoda’s third collection of poetry reflects on the poet’s family history, specifically, the life of his grandfather, who was imprisoned in a U.S. internment camp during World War II. These often spare, gorgeously crafted poems are constructed and persist within and out of chilling landscapes–the aftermath of the bombing of Hiroshima, the underworld.–Academy of American Poets
Brandon Shimoda is underground, in the realm of the dead. One hears ‘the graceless steps of wandering spirits’–with them he wanders among trees, flowers, water, mixing them with the equally subtle presence of women whose bodies are weightless, who wander in his own life. His world is a hushed world–his book, a silent prayer, not to a god, but to life, the life of survivors–that one can whisper, can join the dead–that whisper turns into a ritualistic text, a celebration of witnessing, of the minute manifestations of reality. Brandon Shimoda barely touches his own words: they come to him from afar, float, take a sigh, haunt us and disappear, reappear on the next page, follow their obscure journey–in that we become bound to hear them, we follow them–they make a poem we want to read, and reread with closed eyes. Insinuating itself in the memory of Hiroshima and the bomb–a disaster surpassing disasters–his work is the saying of the dead who return, is a Requiem.–Etel Adnan
