Creative Writing Faculty Mentor Brandon Shimoda has forthcoming nonfiction book from City Lights Publishers
May 14, 2019
I just received advanced reader’s copy of Brandon Shimoda’s most amazing forthcoming nonfiction book, The Grave on the Wall, published by City Lights Books. Fifteen pages in—and every sentence dazzles. Shimoda makes a lyric portrait of his grandfather Midori who was born in a small village in Japan before emigrating to the United States.
Translator and poet, Don Mee Choi says:
“It was part dream, part memory, part forgetting, part identity. It is a remarkable exploration of how citizenship is forged by the brutal U.S. imperial forces—through slave labor, forced detention, indiscriminate bombing, historical amnesia, and wall. If someone asked me, Where are you from?, I would answer, From The Grave on the Wall.’
Brandon will be teaching this summer as part of the Low-Residency MFA in Creative Writing program. Our first residency begins on July 28th, and we are rolling admissions. Other faculty / guest artists include Daniela Naomi Molnar, Taylor Eggån, Monica Drake, Vi Khi Nao, Rachel Jamison Webster, Selah Saterstrom, Alejandro de Acosta, Sara Jaffe, Reema Zaman, and Emily Kendal Frey.
You can catch Brandon:
On Monday, July 29: Brandon gives a talk titled “Dementia: On (Or Under) The Poetry Of Japanese American Incarceration.” 9 am / PNCA / Room 601
On Monday, July 29, Brandon is at Powell’s in conversation with the amazing writer Janice Lee. 7:30 pm / Powell’s Downtown.
On Tuesday, July 30th, Brandon reads along with Guest Artists Taylor Eggån and Daniela Naomi Molnar. 7 pm / PNCA / Mediatheque