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Shō
Yamagushiku

Shō Yamagushiku is a writer, researcher, and spoken word poet who has been published in The Capilano Review, Yellow Medicine Review, Okinawan Journal of Island Studies, Fire from the Heart: Winners of the Muriel’s Journey Poetry Prize, and Nikkei Images. His creative practice is grounded in a diasporic Japanese islander consciousness. Yamagushiku lives on Lekwungen and W̱SÁNEĆ Territory (Victoria).

Program History

Citation

“Shō Yamagushiku’s manuscript, ’shima,’ is an impressive collection with language that is by turns accessible and evasive, lucid and obscure. It hones a vivid, image-driven sensibility as it elaborates abstract considerations on being and belonging. Yamagushiku’s poems arc through time and languages and cross continents to ride the sweep of the Okinawan diaspora, carrying a narrative that is personal, familial, and historical. Yet, for all the attention to places and figures, prosaic concerns never slow the work’s momentum. As he explores desire, memory, and sexuality, Yamagushiku navigates cool formality, raw tension, and lyric yearning.”