The Crane Wife

(Hardback, 2nd New edition)

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Description

Sharon Hashimoto explores themes of what is heard and misinterpreted, what is left unexplained, and what is passed down in The Crane Wife. In these pieces, the Sansei poet leafs through old photographsone of which is of a newlywed couple with the grooms image cut away. Here is the rediscovered piece of barbed wire from outside the Heart Mountain concentration camp. That wire, a lei, and a car trip to an empty lot are all bits of evidence. Her questions address grandparents, mother and father, siblings, and the next generation. Hashimoto also reinvents Japanese folk tales and explores the different voices of the members of a downed JAL jet. Her poems travel in new directions in an attempt to fill in the gaps.

Author Bio

Sharon Hashimoto, who was born in Seattle and is a lifelong resident of Washington state, is a poet and fiction writer. She is a Sansei (third generation Japanese-American) with paternal ties to Hawai'i. Her MFA is from the University of Washington. She was a William Raney Scholar for poetry at the Bread Loaf Writers Conference. Her poems and stories have appeared inShenandoah, North American Review, Tampa Review, Crab Orchard Review, POETRY,and others. For twenty-nine years, she taught at Highline College in Des Moines, Washington.In 1990, she was awarded a National Endowment for the Arts in poetry. She is at work on a novel.