“Concentration Constellation” by Lawson Fusao Inada
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“Concentration Constellation”
by Lawson Fusao Inada 1
In this earthly configuration,
we have, not points of light,
but prominent barbs of dark.
It’s all right there on the map.
It’s all right there in the mind.
Find it. If you care to look.
Begin between the Golden State’s
highest and lowest elevations
and name that location
Manzanar. Rattlesnake a line
southward to the zone
of Arizona, to the home
of natives on the reservation,
and call those Gila, Poston.
Then just take your time
winding your way across
the Southwest expanse, the Lone
Star State of Texas, gather
up a mess of blues as you
meander around the banks
of the humid Mississippi; yes,
just make yourself at home.
in the swamps of Arkansas,
for this is Rohwer and Jerome.
By now, you weary of the way.
It’s a big country, you say.
It’s a big history, hardly
halfway through—with Amache
looming in the Colorado desert,
Heart Mountain high in wide
Wyoming, Minidoka on the moon
of Idaho, then down to Utah’s
jewel of Topaz before finding
yourself at northern California’s
frozen shore of Tule Lake . . .
Now regard what sort of shape
this constellation takes.
It sits there like a jagged scar,
massive, on the massive landscape.
It lies there like the rusted wire
of a twisted and remembered fence.
Teach a Facing History lesson featuring this resource.
- 1Lawson Fusao Inada, “Concentration Constellation” from Legends from Camp: Poems.
Copyright © 1993 by Lawson Fusao Inada. Reprinted with the permission of The Permissions Company, LLC on behalf of Coffee House Press, Minneapolis, Minnesota, coffeehousepress.org.
How to Cite This Reading
Facing History & Ourselves, ““Concentration Constellation” by Lawson Fusao Inada”, last updated September 12, 2024.