Amy Uyematsu Biography
Amy Uyematsu (born 1947) is a Japanese-American poet.
Growing up in Southern California, Uyematsu was torn between the Japanese culture of her family and the American culture of her environment, a conflict which has deeply influenced her writing and poetry. She penned the essay 'The Emergence of Yellow Power' in 1969 (for the Japanese-American journal Gidra), an assertion of Asian-American identity influenced by the consciousness-raising theories of Black Power. She is now a high school math teacher and many of her poems reflect elements of math and quote mathematic equations. She has published three poetry books: Nights of Fire, Nights of Rain, 30 Miles from J-town, and Stone Bow Prayer.
So by sixteen we move in packs
learn to strut and slide
in deliberate lowdown rhythm
talk in a syn/co/pa/ted beat
...
How many years of suffering
revealed in hands like his
small and deliberate as a child's
...
A mere eyelid's distance between you and me.
It took us a long time to discover the number zero.
John's brother is afraid to go outside.
...
- rio de janeiro jardim botanico, 2009
inside this forest / the sky is invisible / as it rains all morning
so many open mouths / philodendrum and palm / bromiliad and wren
...
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12/15/2025 7:17:23 PM # 1.0.0
