Outside from the Inside
By Anne Whiteside
From Isamu Noguchi to Man Ray
Poston War Relocation Center, May 30, 1942
Here, in the internment camp
in the Arizona desert
our preoccupations have shrunk
to a minimum—
the intense dry heat,
afternoon dust storms,
and the difficulty of feeding ourselves
on thirty-five cents a day.
Outside from the inside
it seems history has taken flight
and passes forever.
Here time has stopped and nothing
is of any consequence,
nothing of any value,
neither our time nor our skill.
But I must remind myself,
work is the conversation
I have with myself,
and space is supplied
by the imagination.
Here, there is the memory
of ancient places,
wind and sun, endlessness,
where I came from,
and where I will go.
Oh, for a mountain peak,
a glacier glistening in the sun.
Oh, for an orange,
Oh, for the sea.
Anne Whitehouse is the author of six poetry collections—most recently Meteor Shower (Dos Madres Press). She was born in Birmingham, Alabama, and lives in New York City. www.annewhitehouse.com
She writes: The artist Isamu Noguchi (1904-1988), born to a Japanese father and American mother, volunteered to be interned with other Japanese-Americans during World War II, thinking that he could teach them arts and crafts. He found conditions at the Poston War Relocation Center in Arizona so dire that he immediately regretted his decision, but it took some time to secure his release. On a visit to the Noguchi Museum in New York, I noticed in an exhibit case a letter from Noguchi to the photographer Man Ray written in 1942, while Noguchi was in the camp. “Outside from the inside” is Noguchi’s phrase.
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