Fluid Geographies: An Interview with Laurel Nakanishi, Author of Ashore

P.K. Eriksson: It was so very refreshing to read about a Hawaii that felt like a real place instead of the tourist-seducing prose and photoshopped images the tourism industry pushes. As a person who has never been there, I enjoyed biting into some reality. Can you speak to how or why Hawaii inspired the book? What was particularly Hawaiian about its inspiration?

Laurel Nakanishi: Hawai‘i has been, and continues to be, such a formative and integral part of my life that it is hard for me to imagine writing anything that does not ground itself, somehow, in this place. I was born and raised in Kapālama — an area of Honolulu, on the island of O‘ahu. Although I am not Kanaka Maoli (Native Hawaiian) I have still been shaped by many Hawaiian teachers and values, in addition to the ecological abundance of these islands. Along with Kanaka Maoli influences, the poems have also been inspired by Hawai‘i’s multi-cultural heritage and my own background as a poet of multiple ethnicities. I try to trace some of these lineages in the notes section of the book, and point to some key inspirations under the sub-headings “Further.”

Eriksson: I found what appeared to me to be a distinctly Western US influence, a voice that recognizes the land and place and the things of place. In particular, Gary Snyder came to mind with your concrete imagery and Poundian line, and of course, both Pound and Snyder have significant Eastern influences. Do you feel connected to the poets that adopted the East or the original sources more? As a writer in English, do you feel torn by the influences of both the East and the West? How do you or do you even feel the pull to honor them both?

Nakanishi: I admire Gary Snyder a great deal, especially his attention to the natural world. He is pulling from a long line of writers, particularly Japanese poets, in whom I’ve also found great teachers. I do not feel torn between the literary traditions of the US and Japan, but I do feel the limitations of my access to Japanese writers due to my limited fluency in Japanese. I love the work of Sei Shōnagon, Masaoka Shiki, Yosa Buson, Kobayashi Issa, and Matsuo Basho, along with contemporary Japanese writers. And while I try to read multiple translations, I know that much is changed in that shift to English.

Eriksson: The poems often seem to decenter the importance of human experience, particularly in poems such as “The Shark” and “Catalog.”  It seems intentional to draw one’s self as a writer and us as readers out of ourselves. Was this intentional or does it merely reflect your unguarded mindset? Why do you feel the need to give voice to the non-human?  

Nakanishi: I actually feel that these poems, and the others in the book, are very deeply rooted in the human experience. Although the focus of the poems is on the natural world, it is seen through a human lens which inevitably deciphers and warps what is seen and how that seeing is related. In “The Shark,” a fictional narrator has an affair with a shark and births a half-shark son. This poem, written in prose segments, explores the blurred lines between human and non-human, and the ways that our own children can prove to be quite foreign to us. In the case of “Catalog,” although a narrator seems to be completely absent, the descriptions of the animals are indelibly marked by human observation — in the use of language at all, and in that open sense of wonder that might characterize human observers. Instead of giving voice to the non-human, I see the project of these poems as attempts at interaction and connection with a greater ecosystem which includes both humans and non-humans.

Eriksson: Much of the second section of the book deals with family lineage and mixed family lineage in particular. Increasingly, this must be more the norm in America. I found your expression to be inclusive and so full of heart. What do you wish for us as a country where a strain towards purity is so often the test for identity?

Nakanishi: In so many different areas of our society, I see a pull towards binary. For many people, identities and understandings that resist clear categorization can feel frightening, or at worst, threatening. Yet, this habit of thinking and acting based on binaries can cause a lot of suffering, dividing us into groups: male/female, republican/democrat, human/animal, etc. I find this mode of binary thinking within myself, as well, especially when I question, “Am I Asian enough? Queer enough?” and “Where do I really belong?” But no one is never really just one thing. I believe that we are all a mix of different influences and entities, changing despite our desire to cling to one identity. I wish that we, as a country, could see past the binaries that divide us and begin to dismantle the systems of power that dehumanize so many for the benefit of a few.

Eriksson: Mānoa serves a significant role in the book, and its placeness speaks to story. Much of the collection, the longer poem “Mānoa” in particular, speaks to a worldview of water and its replenishing nature. Significantly, story plays out in novel and compelling ways to elucidate this place and seemingly life on Earth in general. What role do you think story could play in modern American culture, a culture which values pie charts, logarithms, and data over subjective human expression of story?

Nakanishi: Well, I often enter into a poem through the door of an image, and try to craft descriptions that are both precise and surprising. This grounding in the physicality of the world is a steady note in the series of poems called “Mānoa” (scattered throughout the book), and in the last poem of the book, the final “Mānoa.” Along with imagery and lyric musicality, it folds in narrative, research, and mythology. I was especially interested in exploring the mo‘olelo (story, history) of Kauawa‘ahila and Kauakiowao — a pair of siblings who escape their abusive step-mother and hide in Mānoa valley. This, and many other stories, are written in the land. Knowledge of a place in Hawai‘i must include knowledge of its stories. I love the depth and nuance that stories provide and the ways they link us to an ongoing history and relationship with a place.

Eriksson: While some poems press directly into a particular place, another poem speaks with much greater ambiguity about place, “Place(less)ness.” Does this ebb-and-flow of place seem more historical in nature or is that something more characteristic of this particular place, Hawaii?

Nakanishi: I wrote “Place(less)ness” when I moved to Nicaragua. As I adjusted to a new life in a rural town along the banks of the San Juan River, I was doing what I can only describe as “survival writing” — writing as a form of grappling with a new place, culture, language, and socio-economic reality. A few of these musings were later worked and re-worked into poems that appear in Ashore — “Place(less)ness” is one of these. I include this poem in the book because I think it serves as an interesting counterpoint to the poems set in Hawai‘i that are so clearly grounded in a sense of place.

Eriksson: What is your hope in writing poetry in this day and age? Why would you want people to read your poems and poetry in general?

Nakanishi: There is so much value on busyness now and countless ways to occupy our time. We may be swept away and swept away from ourselves, but poetry offers us a unique opportunity to slow down and look deeply at the world. I teach poetry writing to elementary school students. In my classes, I explain that poets are just regular people while one super power: they know how to notice the world around them. I love that poetry can take on so many different forms, and through different poems, we may explore new avenues of experience and build empathy for others. I hope that Ashore helps readers in the continental US and elsewhere to experience another (less commercial) side of Hawai‘i. And I hope that readers in Hawai‘i see the book as an invitation into writing their own poetry about this beautiful and nuanced place.