Brian Komei Dempster
Brian Komei Dempster’s debut book of poems, Topaz (Four Way Books, 2013), received the 15 Bytes 2014 Book Award in Poetry. His second poetry collection, Seize, was published by Four Way Books in fall 2020. Dempster is editor of From Our Side of the Fence: Growing Up in America’s Concentration Camps (Kearny Street Workshop, 2001), which received a 2007 Nisei Voices Award from the National Japanese American Historical Society, and Making Home from War: Stories of Japanese American Exile and Resettlement (Heyday, 2011). He is a professor of rhetoric and language at the University of San Francisco, where he serves as Director of Administration for the Master of Arts in Asia Pacific Studies program.
Reading List
A Boy
I knocked Jake Brown to the ground in eighth grade, kept him there with words, Get up, retard. A man is born strong. I dare you. A boy is meant to stand up. But Jake wouldn’t. My son Brendan won’t. Day after day. It hurts to see him stuck. The report branded him retarded, slow, […]
Tangle
Did I poison his seed? He yellowed, a plant needing water. All they could do— shine lights to drain out the jaundice. I am knotted. Grace’s mother, Give him liquids. The doctor, Hold back so he’ll take the breast. And my mother’s question, What did you eat and drink that night? My veins filled with […]
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