Toronto poet, novelist and playwright Terry Watada talks to Sabyasachi Nag about his latest poetry collection: The Mask, (Mawenzi House, 2023)
Sabyasachi Nag (SN): Masks are popular cultural symbols in contemporary Japanese culture. They are used on different occasions and are richly emblematic. How do they relate to the collection of poems?
Terry Watada (TW): The mask has become ubiquitous in society because of the pandemic. They serve to protect us from others and to protect them from us. They also obfuscate identity and communication. The Japanese mask represents age, gender, and emotions of humans and non-humans; yet the individual identity is hidden. With so much death among relatives and friends, I decided to use the mask to delve into the divine and anonymous nature of being. The Japanese mask seemed the perfect symbol.
SN: The collection is sectioned into Seven chapters: The Mask, The Haunting, Summer Stars, The House of Genyo, Ghost Towns, Synesthesia, and Crows in the Moonlight. Can you explain the structure: how are the sections different from and similar to each other?
TW: Each section represents my state of mind at that particular juncture, a way of working through my sense of loss for relatives, friends and a community. The sections are roughly in chronological order with efforts to place the loss in a mythic, supernatural dimension. The last section Crows in the Moonlight brings the themes into a traditional Japanese context.
SN: You have added a rich linguistic texture to the poems through an extensive use of the Japanese vernacular. Could you talk a bit about the nature and origin of this practice?
TW: Japanese Canadians’ use of Japanese became frozen in time since the community was cut off from Japan’s influence during and after WWII. Hence certain words are archaic in Japan. I use those terms to preserve that use of language.
SN: In your collection, you refer to multiple levels of belonging: issei (first-generation immigrants) the nisei (second-generation immigrants born here) “The legion hall came alive to Nisei romance” pg. 102 Union of The Scenes and the Sansei (the third generation) “We said goodbye in our masquerade of friendship I hear Aimee married a Sansei guy and collects classical albums; the legion hall came alive to Nisei romance and the Sansei rock out / dance to the Asia Minors, to 3-minute pop records on the turntable)” pg. 101 Union of the Scenes. How does the Japanese vernacular relate to the issei, nisei and sansei voices? Did you have to translate/interpret the linguistic sensibility, grammatical constructions, and linguistic features of these voices for the purpose of this collection?
TW: The poems chronicle the dissolution of the Nikkei community. When I was growing up, I knew nothing of my family history. Neither did many if not all of my fellow Nikkei. A general disconnect existed within each generation, which grew wider with each successive generation. In a sense, I had to reconstruct the linguistic sensibilities of each generation to define and differentiate each.
SN: Food plays an important role in this collection. There are several references to food: steamed egg custard, shrimp, pickled radish, steamed rice, herring eggs on seaweed etc. Can you talk a bit more about the purpose and intention? Do they represent and/or denote or carry a cultural memory mnemonic unavailable to the average English reader?
TW: Food defines a culture. The items I mention generally belong to a Japanese Canadian and Asian Canadian community. Average readers may know these foods, but they do not know their significance for each culture. I like to use food to differentiate culture and community from the majority culture.
SN: A large majority of the poems in the collection are sparse and minimal; they come with untethered punctuation, negative spaces within the line, and indented lineation. The lines are short – sometimes as short as the length of one word, and no line ever longer than 4 or 5 words. How does the form interface with the themes of the collection?
TW: As I have stated, my community and culture have disappeared over the generations. The cause can be attributed to that which was not said. All our parents and grandparents did not talk about the past as a way of “protecting” successive generations. Hence the old stories, motivations and history were lost. The poetry construction reflects that silence. That which is not said is more important than what is on the page.
SN: Could you name a source that served as an inspiration earlier but is no longer an inspiration, rather something you are currently conflicted with or even hostile towards?
TW: TS Eliot and Ezra Pound. I learned they wrote from their literary traditions, which have little relevance to my work. I am not hostile to their work, but I find they are no longer an influence.
SN: What stories do you have about yourself as a poet? (i.e., What you’re good at or bad at, where you are in your writing journey, etc.)? How have these stories changed or remained the same over time/across different experiences?
TW: I have never considered myself to be a poet. I thought poets, like Pound and Eliot, dwelled in the academic world, dealing with profound thoughts and concerns by using literary and abstract allusions. I soon realized I was not being true to myself, and my past. In that way, I freed myself to pursue relevant ideas.
SN: What inspired this collection – a specific event or something else?
TW: The pandemic and the loss of many relatives and friends (not necessarily because of the pandemic).
SN: What writers (or artists in other forms/media) have been formative in shaping how you write? How?
TW: Haruki Murakami. His work links reality to the supernatural. An effective device used in his work is the unexplained disappearance of characters. Not everything in life is logical. The unexplained is magic. I try to capture the magic, not sure if I have or ever will.
Terry Watada is a well-published writer living in Toronto, Canada. He has six poetry collections, three novels and a short story collection in print. His latest poetry collection is The Mask (Mawenzi House Publishers).
His fourth novel, Hiroshima Bomb Money, is scheduled for release in the fall of 2024. His new play, Sakura: The Last Cherry Blossom Festival, will premiere during the 2025 Lighthouse Summer Festival, in Port Dover ON. (Photo Credit: Tane Akamatsu)