In her second collection, Kathleen Hellen records the “things of beauty” and the “awful things,” as Sei Shōnagon described them in The Pillow-Book, evoking the tension between conformity and conflict. Hellen experiments with traditional forms like haiku, haibun and zuihitsu and summons the ghosts of Noh to connect with family and ancestors. Like an ink-wash painting, The Only Country Was the Color of My Skin captures in its lines and tones the landscape of post-war America, personal history and a hybrid culture.
Poems from the collection in anthologies
“The way of tea” in Poetry International anthology The World I Leave You: Asian American Poets on Faith and Spirit. Orison Books. https://www.orisonbooks.com/product-page/the-world-i-leave-you-asian-american-poets-on-faith-spirit
"Trees with No Branches/Flowers with No Names," "Pictures in Bufano's Garden," and "Bonsai" in Nuclear Impact: Broken Atoms in Our Hands Poetry Anthology, Shabda Press. https://www.shabdapress.com/nuclear-impact-anthology.html
"She Who Invites" (forthcoming) in the print Ginosko Anthology #3
Selected poems in publication
“The Girl They Hired From Snow Country”
About THE ONLY COUNTRY WAS THE COLOR OF MY SKIN
Kathleen Hellen is a bright voice in American Letters. Her poems are folklore, fairytale, myth, heritage, and crystal water. There’s a simple unadorned beauty in every syllable, and not one syllable is in the wrong place. When I read this work, I feel I’m in the hands of a natural poet who has complete control of her intuition and senses. These become the images making up the stories that I want to read over and again. In this world of flagging spirits, it’s lifegiving to find poetry that’s modest, beautiful and true. These poems in their sweet simplicity will bring pleasure. —Grace Cavalieri, “The Poet and the Poem,” Audio Podcasts from the Poetry and Literature Center at the Library of Congress
The Only Country Was the Color of My Skin presents the world through the eyes of a speaker caught in layers of history and mythology. Kathleen Hellen’s poems, beautiful in their density and haunting in their breadth, defy silence as they tell stories of a family haunted by the spectres of war and relocation. In this book, Tojo and Hirohito must reconcile with Mothra and Mr. Moto, Tokyo with the effects of Manzanar—these poems don’t shy away from the complexities and contradictions of being Japanese American in our world. Hellen insists, “I have a mouth to tell my story.” Thank goodness for her voice. —W. Todd Kaneko, author of The Dead Wrestler Elegies
Kathleen Hellen’s poems remind us that reasons for migration are rarely simple or easy. For those whose migratory legacy is war, who live “in the collapse of silk,” being multi-situated is a fact of life—a fragmentary labor, but also a sum force greater than national provinciality. The people of The Only Country Was the Color of My Skin are the children of war, “pretty as defense,” and they also claim space, pushing against platitudes of race, gender, and nation even as they internalize them. Hellen’s Country is fleeting on one hand, and disastrous on the other—a “crafted Occupation” born of a kaiju’s “o, monstrous egg.” —Kenji C. Liu, author of Monsters I Have Been and Map of an Onion