Poet-educator Kakugawa remembers life in Kapoho
By Wayne Harada
Frances Kakugawa, a friend for several decades, today (Dec. 7) is launching her fifth book via Watermark Publishing, “Kapoho: Memoir of a Modern Pompeii,” in which she shares recollections of life in a tiny town (now gone, swallowed by a lava flow) called Kapoho on the Big Island.
I remember her retelling some of these intimate thoughts over the past three decades, in visits to her now-gone-home and in Honolulu, where she taught in Island public schools.
She was always primarily a poet at heart but a storyteller in general, and she lived through tough times, enduring some of the fallout scars of being of Japanese ancestry, in a post World War II era when local Japanese often were maligned because of the bombs that fell at Pearl Harbor.
Over the years, she has evolved as a savvy ambassador of caregiving, conducting workshops for those burdened with the task of caring for a loved one, and writing about her use of poetry to ease the pangs of the grips of Alzheimer’s.
Now a Sacramento resident, Kakugawa was authored 10 books that serve as a legacy of her mission to share some of the memories of the past and her passion to enlighten and enhance the role of the caregiver in everyday life.
“Kapoho,” Kakugawa’s new book, tracks many remembrances of her growing up times in Kapoho including touching stories of her late mother, for whom she was a caregiver. Her other books include the award-winning children-oriented and family-friendly “Wordsworth the Poet” and “Wordsworth Dances the Waltz;” the caregivers manual, “Mosaic Moon: Caregiving Through Poetry,” and her memoirs of her education career, “Teacher, You Look Like a Horse!”
For “Kapoho,” Kakugawa will make a number of personal appearances (see below).
‘KAPOHO: MEMOIR OF A MODERN POMPEII’
BOOK SIGNINGS AND WORKSHOPS:
Today (Dec. 7), 6 – 7:30 pm
Native Books at Ward Warehouse
1050 Ala Moana Blvd.
Reading and light refreshments
596-8885
Saturday (Dec. 10), 11 am-noon
Barnes & Noble, Kahala Mall
4211 Waialae Ave.
737-3323
Dec. 17, 11 am-1 pm
Book Gallery, Hilo
259 Keawe St.
(808) 935-4943
Dec. 17, 3 – 5pm
“A Writer’s Pen” Workshop—The Writing Processs and Memoir Writing
East Hawaii Cultural Center, Hilo
141 Kalakaua St.
Dec. 18, 1– 2pm
Basically Books, Hilo
160 Kamehameha Ave.
(808) 961-0144
More information:
www.bookshawaii.net
www.francesk.org
Watermark Publishing, 587-7766 or (866) 900-BOOK, email sales@bookshawaii.net.
Show and Tell Hawai'i
December 12th, 2011 at 1:05 pm
Wayne - you are so right, Frances is, indeed, "poet at heart, storyteller in general". To which I would add, one of our first and most notable 'Occupy Writing' storytellers, at the front lines of recapturing our most important experiences from the pens of the 1% - the "military historians", "language wonks", "diversity sociologists" and others who would fashion of our most intimate experiences an axe with which to chop the tree of our lives into little pieces of defense for their pet theories about what these events might mean.
Where else, but from the talk-story of poets like Frances might we find tales worth passing along to our grandchildren about having the very shape of one's face taken from them along with their facility to speak the given language of their ancestors; told side by side with revelations of patriotic fervor triumphantly stomping on green bugs to defeat Emperor Hirohito? What military historian would ever notice that the explosion that began one-millionth of a millionth of a second, 1800 ft over Hiroshima, continued exploding with devastating ferocity nearly 5 decades later as some child arrived on the "shores" of Frances' 3rd-grade classroom and announced they had come to the islands from Hiroshima to help relieve her grandmother from the pain of a cancer-riddled body caused by flash burns she received some 44 years before a few km from ground-zero?
It is only through tales such as those found in "Kapoho - A Memoir of Modern Pompeii" that I think the authentic stories of the 99% are truly to be found. I'm most heartened that we seem to share this feeling of universality that Frances' stories are returning our own true and hard-earned history back to us in its original form. That is an occupation zone I expect we would both be more than glad to camp out and listen to Frances talk-story. - red slider