Garrett Kurai

Garrett Kurai writes about the big sleep and the little death. His poems reside in Carrie Chang’s Lotus Magazine, Monolid, Statement Magazine at California State University at Los Angeles, (Sic) Vice & Verse and speak in the Radio Poetique series on the PennSound University of Pennsylvania website and a forthcoming summer episode of the Skylight Books Podcast. A graduate of New York University's Creative Writing Program, he lives and teaches in his hometown of Los Angeles with his Chicana wife and son. Garrett is the Sansei son of the late, taiko musician and Buddhist abbot, Shuichi Kurai who once worked and performed at JANM. When not wording, he collects a wall of sound and occasionally DJs. His music heroes feature the “R” sound–Robert Wyatt and Rahsaan Roland Kirk–which is the sound of revolution.

Updated June 2021

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Nikkei Uncovered: a poetry column

Retracing / Return

This month, we feature the lovely words of LA-based poets, Noriko Nakada and Garrett Kurai.  I've returned to a practice of penning letters, cards, personal messages to be sent by post or out into the ether for recipients I may never actually meet, and when I read through the words of these writers, I thought a lot of the cycle of remembrance and homage...how when we return, in writing, to our memories, we have a new conversation with the past...how there is much to be said in the process of retracing our narrative paths.  Thank you Noriko...Thank you, Garrett, for taking us do…

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