Four Way Books

American flag in front of a prison camp
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“So that the poem is an act of discovery”: An Interview with Brian Komei Dempster

ByMatthew Thorburn

Brian Komei Dempster received the 15 Bytes Book Award in Poetry for his debut collection, Topaz (Four Way Books, 2013), which examines the experiences of a Japanese American family separated and incarcerated in American World War II prison camps. Through their interwoven narratives, his poems show us how the past never ends: it shapes and is…

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“Bringing the Poem Back to the Actual”: An Interview with David J. Daniels

ByMatthew Thorburn

David J. Daniels writes poems that sneak up on you. Smart and worldly, emotional and funny, they convey a sense of life-as-it’s-lived: culture both high and low, our strivings and failings, the countless ways we let each other down and hold each other up. Because of the immediacy of voice and freshness of language, you…