Mitsuye Yamada: 100 Years of Amplitude
an article by Penelope Moffet
The last time I interviewed poet Mitsuye Yamada, she was only 65 years old. This July she turned 100. Recently reached by Zoom with the help of her daughter, Hedi Yamada Mouchard, the poet was friendly, alert and mischievous.
On September 23, from 2 to 3:30 p.m. the Poetry Center at San Francisco State University will host a Zoom event honoring Yamada, featuring a pre-recorded reading by Yamada and live tributes from poets Brynn Saito, Brandon Shimoda, Marilyn Chin, doris diosa davenport, W. Todd Kaneko, traci kato-kiriyama, Shirley Geok-Lin Lim, Mia Ayumi Malhotra, Cherríe Moraga and Nellie Wong.
Yamada’s first book, Camp Notes and Other Poems, which focuses on life in the internment camps during World War II, was published by Shameless Hussy Press in 1976. It was followed in 1988 by Desert Run: Poems and Stories. In 2019, at age 96, she published Full Circle: New and Selected Poems through the University of California at Santa Barbara Department of Asian American Studies. Full Circle is an unusual new and selected because it contains far more new than previously-published poems.
The big gap between books is chiefly due to Yamada’s extensive involvement in teaching and political action. For many years she taught at Cypress College and elsewhere, ran writers’ workshops and volunteered for Amnesty International locally and on the national board. She also volunteered for the Interfaith Prisoners of Conscience Project organized by her brother, Michael Yasutake, visiting prisoners around the U.S. In 2020 Nisei Radicals, a book about Yamada and Yasutake by UCSB professor Diane Fujino, was published by the University of Washington Press.
These days Yamada lives very quietly in the Irvine, California house she has inhabited for over half a century. Hedi Mouchard, the youngest of Yamada’s four children, her husband Andre Mouchard and one granddaughter and her boyfriend also live in the house, guarding Yamada’s health and energy.
Yamada is no longer writing, but she is an avid reader who scrutinizes newspapers every day with the aid of a magnifying glass. “One of the things that I think that one does, you know, when you’re a poet, one of the things you need to do when you’re writing poetry, is you have to hole yourself up in your study and lock everybody out,” she said. “But I think that I decided not to do that anymore, because I don’t have that much time left. And I really need to spend time with my family. And so I think that I’ve made my decision to do that.”
Hedi Mouchard acts as Yamada’s publicist and webmaster when not running her own genomics biotechnology business. The interaction between the poet and Mouchard was affectionate and playful in the Zoom conversation, with Yamada at one point pretending to be a child who has done nothing wrong: “I didn’t do it, mom.” Her centennial is being celebrated by her large extended family with private gatherings, and Mouchard said more public events will take place. The plan is to celebrate Yamada’s birthday for the rest of the year.
Advance registration for the Zoom event is available here: https://sfsu.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_I1K5EyhQT3KZSmw7vNGnKg#/registration
Penelope Moffet is the author of three chapbooks, Cauldron of Hisses (Arroyo Seco Press, 2022), It Isn’t That They Mean to Kill You (Arroyo Seco Press, 2018) and Keeping Still (Dorland Mountain Arts, 1995). Her poems have been published in several anthologies and many journals, among them The Missouri Review, Columbia, The MacGuffin, One, ONE ART, Natural Bridge, Gleam: Journal of the Cadralor, The Rise Up Review, The Sow’s Ear Poetry Review, Sheila-Na-Gig, MacQueen’s Quinterly, Red-Headed Stepchild, The Ekphrastic Review, The Journal of Radical Wonder and Gyroscope. She has worked as a freelance journalist, publicist for non-profits, editor and legal secretary. The recipient of artist residencies at Dorland Mountain Arts, The Mesa Refuge, The Helen R. Whiteley Center and Alderworks Alaska, she has lived in Southern California most of her life.
