Issei Poetry Friday
Issei Poetry Friday is a weekly social media series highlighting poems from the Los Angeles Issei Poetry Collection Digital Edition.
Each week, the series features one poem or haiku drawn from historic collections such as Torch (炬火) and Sen A Kai (蟬蛙會句集), written by hundreds of Los Angeles-based poets during the 1920s and 1930s. These works offer a rare window into the everyday lives, creative communities, and emotional landscapes of first-generation Japanese immigrants, preserving a literary legacy that has too often remained hidden due to language barriers and the disruptions of World War II.
