All Names Spoken

Janet Money is Sports Editor of the Woodstock Daily Sentinel-Review.

This collection of poetry and fiction is shared by Tamai Kobayashi and
Mona Oikawa, both Japanese-Canadian lesbian writers. In a jointly
written introduction, they discuss their differences as well as their
obvious similarities, and acknowledge their contribution to the dearth
of existing literature by Asian-American lesbians.

Kobayashi, whose work occupies the first half of the book, sometimes
seems self-conscious in her poetry; images seem forced and don’t
always work together well. She’s at her best when the language is
plain and spare, as in “for lola”: “it is for this / that I have
driven / the miles.” Kobayashi includes some enticing prose erotica
and a fictional work in progress that needs to be more fast-paced.

Oikawa’s work is more polished and emotional. In
“Self-Examination,” a moving tribute to her late mother, the poet is
dreading having to examine her own breasts. Her prose pieces, “Some
thoughts on being a Sansei lesbian feminist” and “My life is not
imagined: Notes on writing as a Sansei lesbian feminist,” are
thought-provoking personal essays on racism, sexism, and homophobia.

Although the collection is uneven, both writers are obviously talented
and there is valuable literature here.