Common Grace: Poems (Raised Voices)

By: Aaron Caycedo-Kimura

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Synopsis: The first major poetry collection from an award-winning student of Robert Pinsky, exploring the inherited trauma within his Japanese American family, his life as an artist, and his bond with his wifeIn 65 lyric poems organized into a triptych, Common Grace offers an important new lens into Asian American life, art, and love.Part 1, &“Soul Sauce,&” describes the poet&’s life as a practicing visual artist, taking us from an early encounter with an inkwell at Roseland Elementary in 1969 to his professional outdoor easel perched on Long Island Sound.Part 2, &“Ubasute,&” is named after the mythical Japanese practice wherein &“a grown son lifts / his aged mother on his back, / delivers her to a mountain, / leaves her to die.&” This concept frames a wrenching portrayal of his parents&’ decline and death, reaching back to his father&’s time in the American internment camps of WWII and his mother&’s memories of the firebombing of Tokyo. It also anchors the two outer parts in the racial trauma and joys passed down from his parents.Part 3, &“Gutter Trees,&” gives us affecting love poems to his wife and the creative lives they&’ve built together.Ranging in scope from private moments to the sweep of familial heritage, Caycedo-Kimura&’s poems are artful, subtle, but never quiet.