Issei Poetry Friday

Issei Poetry Friday regularly features poems from the "Los Angeles Issei Poetry Collection Digital Edition," an ongoing archival project funded by the National Historical Publications and Records Commission, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and the John Randoph Haynes and Dora Haynes Foundation.

The project’s goal is to recover the Japanese-language literature of Los Angeles’ Issei (first-generation) writers and educate the public about their significant creative contributions through translation, interpretation, and publication. Each week, we feature one poem or haiku from the collections "Torch" (炬火) or "Sen A Kai" (蟬蛙會句集), written by hundreds of Los Angeles poets during the 1920s and 1930s. Their poetry documents the cultural impact they had as first-generation immigrants and is a valuable source for studying the pre-war period.

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