“Concentration Constellation” by Lawson Fusao Inada

“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.