While Last Night at the Telegraph Club has been touted across the Internet, what made me pick it up was our fridge magnet. Our favorite book delivery service, Rainbow Crate, made a (v adorable) fridge magnet of Lily and Kath. I needed to understand the adorableness. Also, yanno, I’ve been meaning to read Malinda Lo, the lesbian YA icon herself.

In 1954 San Francisco, life isn’t easy. Less easy if you’re a Chinese American high schooler on the cusp of the adult world, with its Red and Lavender Scares, xenophobia, white supremacy, and patriarchy. Even-less-easy-than-that if you’re a lesbian. In other words, Lily’s really going through it. She burns to know, to understand; to grow up. And it seems like her classmate Kath is asking the same questions.

I love this book. On a craft level, the sentences flowed like clear water, word after word after word. The characters were vibrant and nuanced. I literally wiggled with excitement about the historical details, because they were such a perfect cross-section of my historical studies and my family stories of growing up in the ‘50s. The plot engaged me, and the character and thematic work brought disparate elements together like they were meant to be. While Lo meant Last Night at the Telegraph Club to be a standalone, I would 100% read a sequel about Lily and Kath as adults.

Do I recommend Last Night at the Telegraph Club? HELL YEAH I DO. Lo is lauded as an award-winning wordsmith for good reason. Treat yourself to Lily’s journey. 

River of Stars: Selected Poems of Yosano Akiko is my second time reading a collection of her poetry. After reading the biography/academic study Embracing the Firebird, I was raring for more.

Matsui Keiko-san and Hamill Sam-san craft a very straightforward poetry collection. The introduction is quite brief, and I’m glad I saved this volume for after I’d found my footing with Akiko-san’s work and life. The funniest part of the introduction was the compliment of how spiritual Akiko-san’s work can be. Usually this descriptor conjures images of devotion, grace, and praise. For Akiko-san, it’s multiple poems about how, in her opinion, Buddhism sucks, hahahahaha.

In addition to select tanka from the Midaregami, River of Stars includes Akiko-san’s more longform poetry. The iconic “Thou Shalt Not Die, Brother!” is as epic as advertised in the Bungo Stray Dogs anime. Other longer works were more odd and less feminist. Her described utopia sounds good…until she mentions censorship. In another, she urges women to be their husband’s equal, to work, and have a job. The poem insists that the only things getting in the way of these goals are inclination, and bemoans that women limit themselves to motherly/wifely roles and “frivolous” things. The irony tasted metallic when the next poem lamented how hard it was to be the sole wage-earner in a household. Patriarchy is awful. These poems were a reminder that Akiko-san is a fallible human like the rest of us.

Overall, I enjoyed this collection and continuing my journey with Akiko-san and her poetry. The library has no more books on her, sadly, so I’ll have to keep an eye out elsewhere. 

After delighting in the English translation of Midaregami, I wanted to learn even more about Akiko-san’s life and poetry. Embracing the Firebird was a natural next choice, and, turns out, a good one. 

Embracing the Firebird is part biography and part bibliography of the first third of poet Akiko-san’s life, from birth to her publication of Midaregami. Beichman’s intended audience seems to be academics and students, but her accessible, dynamic prose and truly beautiful translation work make this book a really awesome resource for anyone interested in Akiko-san. I honestly wish I’d read this first before Midaregami’s other English translation. Beichman’s accounting is comprehensive, engaging, and sometimes funny. Shucking off her shroud, Akiko-san changed from an obscured figure to a stubborn, horny spitfire poet with a sharp tongue and sharper mind to match. In my other deep dives on early twentieth century Japanese writers, I’ve been frustrated how researchers study the writer in isolation. Like, they think artists are lonely creatures, uninfluenced by their family, friends, and communities. Beichman happily and doggedly researches Akiko-san’s family, teachers, and literary colleagues. Especially fascinating was how Beichman contrasted the poetry’s initial critical reception to today’s modern thought about Akiko-san’s work. 

A marvelous chunk of the book dedicates itself to translation and poetic analysis of Midaregami’s tanka. Overall, I loved and agreed with Biechman’s analysis. She tracked Akiko-san’s influences from plays, movies, books, trips, museum exhibits, and popular culture, which added color and texture to the biographical context. A couple thesis statements I disagreed with, and, surprise, surprise, they regarded queer subtext. As I explained in my review of A Girl with Tangled Hair (the English translation of Midaregami), Akiko-san is an important figure in queer Japanese history, but a controversial one. Despite an intense relationship with fellow poetess Yamakawa Tomiko-san, Akiko-san never publicly identified as queer. Yet queer readers–especially sapphic and polyamorous readers–find a mirror in her poems. It’s a thorny topic. For a few tanka, it seemed like Biechman bent over backwards to explain around the more obvious queer reading. For example, one explanation involved Akiko-san maybe seeing this one painting, in this one specific exhibit, and slightly misinterpreting it in a very peculiar manner. To me, the poem was about how fun it is to eat a lady out.

Embracing the Firebird covers the entire tapestry of Akiko-san’s young life. I read it to learn, for the sake of learning. By the end, my brain was alight, hungry for more facts about Akiko-san and her poetry. I hope Biechman goes on to write the next two books on Akiko’s middle and later life. Someone get this academic some funding STAT!

My review of the English translation, A Girl with Tangled Hair: https://app.thestorygraph.com/reviews/8398a227-0d3a-47ed-925c-ff068424e3c5