Lawson Fusao Inada

Lawson Fusao Inada (born 1938) is an American poet and academic, who served as poet laureate of the U.S. state of Oregon.

Life[]

Inada is a 3rd-generation Japanese-American (Sansei), born in Fresno, California. When he was 4 years old, Inada and his family were interned for the duration of World War II at camps in Fresno, Arkansas, and Colorado.^[1]

Following the war, Inada became a jazz musician, a bassist, following the work of Miles Davis, John Coltrane, and Billie Holiday, to whom he would later write tributes in his works.^[1] Inada cites jazz and his time in the internment camps as his chief influences as a poet.^[2]

He studied writing at the University of California, Berkeley, the University of Oregon, and the University of Iowa.^[3]

He began teaching poetry at Southern Oregon University in 1966.

Quotations[]

With new hope.

We build new lives.

Why complain when it rains?

This is what it means to be free.

-- Lawson Inada, Japanese American Historical Plaza, Portland, Oregon

Recognition[]

In 1994, Inada's Legends from Camp: Poems won an American Book Award.

He has received several poetry fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts.^[3] He also won the 1997 Stafford / Hall Award for Poetry.

In 2006 Inada was named Oregon's 5th poet laureate, the first person to fill the position since William Stafford in 1989.^[4]^[5] He was succeeded by Paulann Petersen in 2010.^[6]

Publications[]

Poetry[]

Three Northwest Poets: Lawson Inada, Doug Lawder, Albert Drake (edited by Ralph Salisbury). Madison, WI: Quixote Press, 1970.
Before the War: Poems as they happened, New York: Morrow, 1971.
The Buddha Bandits Down Highway 99 (by Garrett Kaoru Hongo, Alan Chong Lau, & Lawson Fusao Inada). Mountain View, CA: Buddhahead, 1978.
Legends From Camp: Poems. Minneapolis, MN: Coffee House Press, 1993.
Just Intonations (illustrated by Robert Kostka). Ashland, OR: Graven Images Gallery Press, 1996.
Drawing the Line, Minneapolis, MN: Coffee House Press, 1997.

Non-fiction[]

In This Great Land of Freedom: The Japanese Pioneers of Oregon (contributor). Los Angeles, CA: Japanese American National Museum, 1993.
Touching the Stones: Tracing One Hundred Years of Japanese American History (contribuotor). Portland: Oregon Nikkei Endowment, 1994.
Introduction to Unfinished Message: Selected works of Toshio Mori. Berkeley, CA: Heyday Books, 2000.
A Matter of Conscience: Essays on the World War II Heart Mountain Draft Resistance Movement (contributor). Powell, WY: Western History Publications, 2002.

Edited[]

Aiiieeeee! An anthology of Asian-American writers (edited with Frank Chin, Jeffery Paul Chan, & Shawn Wong). Washington, DC: Howard University Press, 1974.
The Big Aiiieeeee!: An anthology of Chinese American and Japanese American literature (edited with Frank Chin, Jeffery Paul Chan, & Shawn Wong). New York: Penguin, 1990.
Only What We Could Carry: The Japanese American internment experience. Berkeley, CA: Heyday Books / San Francisco: California Historical Society, 2000.