Beyond Heart Mountain: Poems (National Poetry Series) [Paperback]

Lee Ann Roripaugh (Author)

Book Description

Series: National Poetry Series | Publication Date: June 1, 1999

Selected by Ishmael Reed for the National Poetry Series--hauntingly beautiful poems that summon the spirits of a Japanese internment camp.

Lee Ann Roripaugh has been hailed by Ishmael Reed as "one of the brightest talents" writing poetry today. In this collection, she gives voice to the Japanese immigrants of the American West. In an unforgiving land of dirt and sagebrush, mothers labor to teach their children of the ocean, old men are displaced by geography and language, and the ghosts of Hiroshima clamor for peace. Lee Ann Roripaugh's exquisitely crafted poems rise from the pages of Beyond Heart Mountain burdened with memory and pain, yet converting these to powerful art--art that is like "the pattern of kimono found burned into a woman after Hiroshima . . . almost too beautiful, too horrible. . . to bear."

Remember to raise
bright orbs of rice-paper lanterns
by the goldfish pond,
so they can watch for me
with the yellow, unblinking gaze
of nocturnal things . . .
--from "Peony Lantern"

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Many poets have sought to reconcile war's irreversible alteration of the normal course of human lives and memories. In this debut narrative triptych, selected by Ishmael Reed for the National Poetry Series, Roripaugh manages to bring a history she never experienced through her own past, to her present self. The first section is written from the perspective of a young Vietnam-era girl trying to piece together a multiple identity from within a small Wyoming town. The icons of her Japanese heritageAdolls, bells, music, and foodAare a source of pride and confusion: "I'm half-and-half, and I hide/ in the house, listen to my parents'/ music. Outside on the pavement/ a tsuzumi drum, accompanied by suzu,/ temple bells, coming from their/ bedroomAthe chime on my father's/ typewriter." The second section, "Heart Mountain, 1943," tells the stories of 10 Japanese prisoners held at the Heart Mountain internment camp, weaving together polyvocal narrative fragments that talk to the reader (and each other) across the stark walls of the cell blocks. Part three of the book includes poems told from the perspective of an older and self-assured woman who has embraced the cultural contrasts of her complicated ancestry, and can now separate the shadow of war from her own psychic and personal growth: "...leaf prints etched in black mold, like/ the pattern of/ a kimono found burned into/ a woman after/ Hiroshima, and it is almost/ too beautiful, / too horrible for me to bear." Such images may not, finally, reconcile war and grief with aesthetics, but the book's drive toward clarity and strength is often moving. (June)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Ishmael Reed's choice for this year's "National Poetry" series is easy to like: a first collection born, like its author, from the union of a United States military man and a Japanese woman during World War II. Roripaugh, who is also a pianist with a performance degree from Indiana University, convincingly re-creates her mother's war-bound world in clear, concise free verse, fusing classical Japanese poetic imageryAchrysanthemums, the moon, kimono sleevesAwith the violence of war, occupation, and internment in the United States: "She says/ oysters make them, when there's/ sand or gravel under their shells./ It hurts. And the more it hurts/ the bigger the pearl." American racism and cruelty is detailed in "Heart Mountain, 1943," a long first-person narrative about an internment camp; in the prose poem "Chrysanthemums," the poet's mother recounts childhood koto lessons cut short by war. Other narrators are ghosts, or spirit-lovers, a classical Japanese conceit that resonates in light of recent history. But most of all these are the poems of a girl in the land-locked American West, where an Asian American may be treated only slightly better than a Native American, and squid in a sink smells like a lost country. This is a fine first collection.AEllen Kaufman, Dewey Ballantine Law Lib., New York
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 70 pages
• Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics); First edtion edition (June 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0140589201
• ISBN-13: 978-0140589207
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.5 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,686,413 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Lee Ann Roripaugh's second volume of poetry, Year of the Snake, was published by Southern Illinois University Press as part of the Crab Orchard Award Series in Poetry, and was subsequently named winner of the Association of Asian American Studies Book Award in Poetry/Prose for 2004.

Her first book, Beyond Heart Mountain (Penguin Books, 1999), was a 1998 winner of the National Poetry Series, and was selected as a finalist for the 2000 Asian American Literary Awards.

A third volume, On the Cusp of a Dangerous Year, will be forthcoming from Southern Illinois University Press in Fall 2009.

The recipient of a 2003 Archibald Bush Foundation Individual Artist Fellowship, she was also named the 2004 winner of the Prairie Schooner Strousse Award, the 2001 winner of the Frederick Manfred Award for Best Creative Writing awarded by the Western Literature Association, and the 1995 winner of the Randall Jarrell International Poetry Prize.

Her poetry and short stories have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies. Roripaugh is currently an Associate Professor of English at the University of South Dakota.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Music for the mind, and soul, July 31, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Beyond Heart Mountain: Poems (National Poetry Series) (Paperback)

There is much to be said about poetry with language so finely chiseled it cuts through the page. Roripaugh's words are a feast for the senses. Myth, history, culture, and memory are but a few of the rich ingredients in this dazzling book of poems. Definitely one of the best books of poetry I've read this year.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Large Passion, February 28, 2000

By 

k'nth (Pusan, Korea) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Beyond Heart Mountain: Poems (National Poetry Series) (Paperback)

A large passion guides these poems from the first line to the last. From tragedy to simple pleasures, an entire range of human emotions is chronicled in this unique collection of poems. Beyond Heart Mountain is a moving experience; a great addition to your library and life.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A new voice not to be missed!, June 7, 1999

By 

Jon Tribble (Carbondale, IL USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Beyond Heart Mountain: Poems (National Poetry Series) (Paperback)

"Beyond Heart Mountain" is a powerful first book. These poems bring together history and the personal narratives that are shaped by the forces in the world around them, and, in turn, shape identity. Lee Ann Roripaugh's craft is only surpassed by the intelligence she brings to these explorations of the human heart struggling against the rejections the world can level against it. Her prose poems, graceful narratives, and sensual lyric poems are equally able to contain heartbreak and humor, disappointment and celebration. I highly recommend this book.