A Japanese Edo-period game inspires multigenre writer and artist Terry Watada’s featured collection, The Game of 100 Ghosts (Mawenzi House). Game players light one hundred candles, snuffing out one at a time after telling a ghost story. The hoped result was that a being from another world would be summoned to this one: likewise, Watada’s insightful, deeply personal, and beautifully-written collection summons the memories of lost loved ones. For sharing these memories, author of Obasan Joy Kogawa says simply: “For Terry, applause and gratitude, because he has held the people in his mind and his heart, and because he gave them back to us.”
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A Japanese Edo-period game inspires multigenre writer and artist Terry Watada’s featured collection, The Game of 100 Ghosts (Mawenzi House). Game players light one hundred candles, snuffing out one at a time after telling a ghost story. The hoped result was that a being from another world would be summoned to this one: likewise, Watada’s insightful, deeply personal, and beautifully-written collection summons the memories of lost loved ones. For sharing these memories, author of Obasan Joy Kogawa says simply: “For Terry, applause and gratitude, because he has held the people in his mind and his heart, and because he gave them back to us.”Check out an excerpt from “A Game of Ghosts” below, and be inspired by Watada’s incredible work ethic in our short interview below.ALU: Which particular poets or poetry collections have most inspired your writing?Terry Watada: I love the masters: TS Eliot, Ezra Pound, Wallace Stevens, and Ted Hughes to name a few. I was inspired to write poetry by my father and maternal grandfather. They were not published but they were poets nonetheless. ALU: Are you inspired by a particular place, thing, or someone other than another poet?TW: I have found great moments of poetry in the novels of James Joyce, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Haruki Murakami and Yukio Mishima. The most beautiful landscapes and seascapes in the world exist for me in Hawaii. I love the sunset pink waters off Bellows Airforce base and the serenity of the Valley of the Temples.ALU: Do you have any particular writing rituals?TW: I get up most mornings at 6:30 and then have a cup of coffee while I watch a DVD (a movie or a series). After an hour, I head for my basement office, crank up the computer and begin the writing task for the day. At about 11:30, I break for lunch. Around 1:00, I’m back on the computer until 5:00. I then watch the news and have dinner with my family. Evenings I seldom write unless a project demands my attention. This is the exact opposite use of my time before retirement. Don’t have the energy to write all day and night. Must be feeling my age. * * *Find where Terry Watada’s The Game of 100 Ghosts lands on our interactive poetry web, or find it on our poetry web poster. Check out the other Woven Odes featured poets in celebration of National Poetry Month here.
