Coming Home from Camp

Lonny Kaneko’s poetry expresses the reverberating

trauma of his family’s imprisonment in

the Minidoka concentration camp during WWII.

Without committing a crime or due process, the

Kaneko family was among 120,000 Japanese Americans

put in concentration camps in the United

States. Kaneko’s illuminating poetry: touching,

evocative, reflecting a deep sense of sadness––also

reflects in its range, the depth of resilience and the

transcendence of the human spirit.

“There’s nothing to see through/the ordinary eyes…”

says one of the poems in this fine collection, but Lonny

Kaneko does not have ordinary eyes or an ordinary sensibility,

and he sees a great deal. Hidden in the title of

this book is the begged question: “How do we define

home?” Here is a remarkable poet who has spent his

whole life attempting to do this. Kaneko does not merely

bear witness; he works to understand consequences. He

is a participant in his life, not a victim of it.

- Samuel Green, Inaugural Poet Laureate, Washington State

“Like the harsh wind scouring the barracks of Minidoka,

these poems bring a chill with the first reading. Kaneko

shares the numbing secrets of the internment, stating

“the cold is not cold until I admit it.” Against the sand

of the past, he reveals the landscape of the present.”

- Sharon Hashimoto, author of The Crane Wife

There is “dust rising over all the world” but when it settles,

one finds poems like these that quench the thirst

and feed the soul. From Minidoka to Seattle and points

beyond, I find myself returning to that “leaf in a well

of water”.

- Alan Chong Lau, Arts Editor, International Examiner

Coming Home From Camp and Other Poems

by Lonny Kaneko

paperback: $14.00 | ISBN 978-0-9894291-5-3

Distributed by Ingram, Partners West,

Baker & Taylor, Amazon and Barnes and Noble.

www.endicottandhughbooks.com

Lonny Kaneko has received both

national and local awards for his

poetry, fiction, and play—including

a fellowship from the National

Endowment for the Arts for poetry.

Stories, poems and essays appear

in anthologies such as An Ear to the

Ground, Daily Fare, The Big AIIIEEEEE,

Asian American Literature, and The

Seattle Review. He lives on Vashon

Island in Washington state.