Your Mother is a Man

“How is it that we became the weaker sex?”

Jean Gordon Kocienda 12/27/21 Jean Gordon Kocienda 12/27/21

Radium and Other 20th Century Conveniences

Akiko had electric lights and a telephone in 1901, at a time when my grandfather, born in Ohio, had none.

Jean Gordon Kocienda 11/18/21 Jean Gordon Kocienda 11/18/21

This mother’s life is in danger

Not only is it safer now to have a baby in Japan, but it was safer in the first three decades of the 20th century, during Akiko’s childbearing years.

Jean Gordon Kocienda 11/10/21 Jean Gordon Kocienda 11/10/21

On Aiming High and Falling Short

This is why I love my husband. Well, this, and he makes an amazing fresh pasta with mushrooms.

Jean Gordon Kocienda 9/22/21 Jean Gordon Kocienda 9/22/21

Too Tired for Gratitude

What if my husband brought me my morning cappuccino every day, and every day I shook a bit of cocoa on it, and watched the winking bubbles, and clinked glasses with him, but felt no joy?

June 2024: Book Bans and Censorship? Akiko knew all about that!

June 2024: The manga series Bungo Stray Dogs has a character named Yosano Akiko whose theme is "Thou Shalt Not Die." Here's why.

I was thrilled to have three of Akiko’s tanka featured by MedMic, a healthcare literary site, in June 2024. Here’s the link.

On Christmas Day 1941, my then-7-year-old father, along with his siblings and mother, fled Honolulu after Pearl Harbor was bombed, leaving my grandfather behind. They had only recently moved to Hawaii from the Philippines, looking over their shoulders at the gathering clouds of war. When they arrived in San Francisco, they were met by International Red Cross volunteers, who helped them find a place to live and gave them warm clothes to wear (they were shivering in their Hawaii cottons). When my grandmother became ill, my father and his siblings were cared for by strangers for months. My family’s enduring gratitude, and their fascination with global cultures, were communicated to me. I grew up wanting to travel the world, speak a foreign language, and live in faraway places.

Here’s my essay on the gifts of helping newcomers to our communities in this month’s Colgate Magazine: Colgate Magazine November 2023 Voices

Honored to be asked to run this workshop again in December.

Anyone who aspires to be a better writer knows the importance of thoughtful word choice and editing. The best writers exercise these muscles every day—but sometimes we forget how much fun writing can be, especially when we do it with friends.

The game is a riff on the Japanese linked verse game known as renga, played by Japanese aristocrats a thousand years ago. In it, each person composes a haiku then passes it to a neighbor, who completes it with a 14-syllable couplet. This simple, limited poetry form encourages participants to choose words and metaphors with care. Don’t worry, you don’t have to be a poet, you just have to be ready to play with words.

Reserve your seat here > https://millvalleylibrary.libcal.com/event/11416176

August 2023: Why am I writing a book about a Japanese poet? or, Why are we never ‘enough’?

July 2023: About the Barbie Movie…