Poetry Pause is the League of Canadian Poets’ daily poetry dispatch. Read “How To Pack for Internment (150 Pounds)” by Kevin Irie.

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How To Pack for Internment (150 Pounds)

By Kevin Irie

In 1942, the Government of Canada allowed Japanese-Canadian adults to bring 150 pounds of luggage when they were taken by train to live in internment camps in the interior of British Columbia.

Ask an elder. Ask someone old.

Learn to fold

clothes you can wear for more

than one season, for

more than one life. Same for shoes,

shirts. Whatever you choose

must last for a week, months, years

perhaps. It appears

even hope must

fit in a suitcase. Don’t trust

where you’re taken, where

you’ll be sent. Enemy Alien, don’t dare

ask. Take 150 pounds

in total. And, yes, it sounds

heavy, the weight of one person divided

by law. Just keep children provided

with toys, games, a gentle lie

so they won’t see panic packed in your eye

when they look up and ask

where are we going? It’s your task

to wrap truth like a kimono around them. Make

it look artful, careful to take

the best measure and length

of the future. It’s the strength

of the passengers who smiled and waved

that impresses most, saved

by their grace, if not their skin,

their ticket in

to the train track

for boarding. Only the trains came back.

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Copyright © Kevin Irie

Previously published in Evacuations (University of Alberta Press, 2026).

Kevin Irie is a Japanese-Canadian poet from Toronto. In 2024, he won Grain Magazine’s poetry contest, second prize in Prairie Fire’s poetry contest, and third prize in The New Quarterly’s poetry contest. He was longlisted for the 2025 CBC Poetry Prize and is in The Gate of Memory: Poems by Descendants of Nikkei Wartime Incarceration (Haymarket Books, 2025) and Best Canadian Poetry 2026 (Biblioasis, 2025). His latest is Evacuations (University of Alberta Press, 2026).

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