Excerpt from shima by shō yamagushiku

May 14, 2025

Poetry Pause is the League of Canadian Poets’ daily poetry dispatch. Read an excerpt from shima (McClelland & Stewart, 2024) by shō yamagushiku, shortlisted for the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award and the Raymond Souster Award. Due to its formatting, this poem is only available as an image.

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Excerpt from shima

By shō yamagushiku

groping a shadowy hamlet by the small of the sea skirting boulders tiptoeing bones bound for the grave passing estuarine fields (chrysanthemum or sugarcane I don’t care) the night’s pinnacle its concern: a soldier ready for harvest a soldier’s load: a fluorescent light a hideous tower and the dead wearing our skin drumming the night’s hide

Copyright © shō yamagushiku

From shima (McClelland & Stewart, 2024), shortlisted for the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award and the Raymond Souster Award.

shō yamagushiku’s work is grounded in a diasporic okinawan consciousness. He writes from the homelands of the Lekwungen and W̱SÁNEĆ peoples (Victoria, BC). His first poetry collection, entitled shima, reflects ancestors, violence, and tradition.

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