Bear, Diamonds and Crane
Claire Kageyama-Ramakrishnan
Bear, Diamonds and Crane depicts the struggles of the Sansei—the grandchildren of Japanese immigrants—with drugs, body image, naming, inherited family lore, and with neighborhood racism. She traces the Sansei’s experience uncovering their parents’ and grandparents’ lives from fragmentary answers and silences: “There is truth here, in the gaps and lapses, but don’t ask where.” In villanelles, haiku, and lyric poems collaged from family letters, Kageyama-Ramakrishnan recounts the meaning of “Forgotten Names” on her maternal grandparents’ side (“Tsuru,” Crane, her grandmother’s maiden name, names a legendary Japanese creature which was a symbol for peace, longevity, fidelity). In “Trailing Fragments: Things to Keep Inside a Bento Box,” she shows how our varied experiences of the world fit alongside each other, “coppery tones for a flight to Europe […] tortillas at a taco stand between Venice and Santa Monica […] blue envelopes with coconut flakes and sugar, box / housing us.”
“1969,” from Bear, Diamonds and Crane:
Early morning breakfast.
Scrambled eggs and chopsticks.
A yellow dog howls
down
La Grange on the west side
of Los Angeles.
A new generation
survives.
The grandparents are Issei.
The parents, Nisei.
The children are third to wear
their lineage.