Poetry Reading!
100K Poets & Artists
Virtual Event —
Sat, Nov 18 at 4pm pdt
A Virtual Event
Hosted by doris diosa davenport


SFSU | The Poetry Center and American Poetry Archives present
Mitsuye Yamada’s 100th Birthday —
A poets’ reading and tribute.
Sat, Sept 23 at 2pm pdt
A Virtual Event
Hosted by Brynn Saito and Brandon Shimoda
02:00 p.m. – 03:30 p.m. PDT
The Poetry Center is deeply honored to present a poets’ reading and tribute to acclaimed poet, essayist, educator, feminist, and human rights activist, Mitsuye Yamada, to help mark her 100th birthday and the extending influence of her remarkable life and work. This online event is hosted by poets Brynn Saito and Brandon Shimoda and organized with the kind assistance of Hedi Yamada Mouchard. REGISTER TO ATTEND.
This online event is free and open to the public.
Participants include: Marilyn Chin, Chrystos, doris diosa davenport, W. Todd Kaneko, traci kato-kiriyama, Shirley Geok-Lin Lim, Mia Ayumi Malhotra, Cherríe Moraga, and Nellie Wong, in addition to our hosts, Brynn Saito and Brandon Shimoda.
Acclaimed poet, essayist, educator, feminist and human rights activist, Mitsuye May Yamada has released her newest collection of poetry, Full Circle: New and Selected Poems. Yamada was born in Kyushu, Japan and grew up in Seattle, Washington. As a teenager, she was incarcerated at Minidoka concentration camp along with her family. After the war, Yamada was one of the first and most vocal of Asian American women writers who wrote about the wartime incarceration of Japanese Americans.

Poet Essayist Feminist Activist
Mitsuye Yamada
Poetry book by
Mitsuye Yamada

UCSB DEPT OF ASIAN AMERICAN STUDIES
Full Circle:
New and Selected Poems
by Mitsuye Yamada
Full Circle New and Selected Poems
Mitsuye Yamada
Foreword by Cherríe Moraga
Essays by Diane C. Fujino and Shirley Geok-Lin Lim
Acclaimed poet, essayist, educator, feminist and human rights activist, Mitsuye May Yamada has released her newest collection of poetry, Full Circle: New and Selected Poems. Yamada was born in Kyushu, Japan and grew up in Seattle, Washington. As a teenager, she was incarcerated at Minidoka concentration camp along with her family. After the war, Yamada was one of the first and most vocal of Asian American women writers who wrote about the wartime incarceration of Japanese Americans. She has authored poetry collections, Camp Notes and Other Poems(1976) and Desert Run: Poems and Stories(1988).
Now, at the age of 96, she has released her latest work, Full Circle: New and Selected Poems(2019).
About the Publisher: The Department of Asian American Studies at UCSB
The Department of Asian American Studies at UCSB was the very first academic department dedicated to the study of Asian Americans at a major research university, and the first department in the United States to offer a Bachelor of Arts degree in Asian American Studies.
The Department offers undergraduate majors the opportunity to study and understand the experiences of Asian Americans, particularly their histories, communities, and cultures. Students learn to evaluate the existing literature in Asian American Studies, to analyze a variety of data on Asian Americans, to conduct original research, and to participate in internships and social justice issues.
Poetry book by
Mitsuye Yamada

UCSB DEPT OF ASIAN AMERICAN STUDIES
Full Circle:
New and Selected Poems
by Mitsuye Yamada
Full Circle New and Selected Poems
Mitsuye Yamada
Foreword by Cherríe Moraga
Essays by Diane C. Fujino and Shirley Geok-Lin Lim
Acclaimed poet, essayist, educator, feminist and human rights activist, Mitsuye May Yamada has released her newest collection of poetry, Full Circle: New and Selected Poems. Yamada was born in Kyushu, Japan and grew up in Seattle, Washington. As a teenager, she was incarcerated at Minidoka concentration camp along with her family. After the war, Yamada was one of the first and most vocal of Asian American women writers who wrote about the wartime incarceration of Japanese Americans. She has authored poetry collections, Camp Notes and Other Poems(1976) and Desert Run: Poems and Stories(1988).
Now, at the age of 96, she has released her latest work, Full Circle: New and Selected Poems(2019).
About the Publisher: The Department of Asian American Studies at UCSB
The Department of Asian American Studies at UCSB was the very first academic department dedicated to the study of Asian Americans at a major research university, and the first department in the United States to offer a Bachelor of Arts degree in Asian American Studies.
The Department offers undergraduate majors the opportunity to study and understand the experiences of Asian Americans, particularly their histories, communities, and cultures. Students learn to evaluate the existing literature in Asian American Studies, to analyze a variety of data on Asian Americans, to conduct original research, and to participate in internships and social justice issues.
Whether she writes from the landscape of the desert, the interiors of home, or the struggle of Japanese Americans, Mitsuye Yamada’s poetry is a gift to American literature.
— Nellie Wong
author
Mitsuye Yamada is one of the great matriarchs of Asian-American literature … a true “poet of witness,” one who lived through almost a century of American chaos: from emigration to internment camps, from nuclear disaster to multiple forms of institutionalized social and racial injustice…. Her work is as beautiful as it is necessary and will inspire many generations to come.
— Marilyn Chin
author of A Portrait of the Self as Nation
“Her reflections of the camp are vivid, pain-filled, weighed with irony … She confronts the invisibility of Asian American women in American Culture.”
— Los Angeles Times
Newest Release
FULL CIRCLE
NEW AND SELECTED POEMS
2-Book Bundle
FULL CIRCLE &
CAMP NOTES AND OTHER WRITINGS
Political Biography
NISEI RADICALS
By Diane C. Fujino
Nisei Radicals: The Feminist Poetics and Transformative Ministry of Mitsuye Yamada and Michael Yasutake.
Paperback January 2021