the book that -- i had finished language of threads and written 4 books that took place in asia. because language of threads was a hate this word, the seekial to women of the silk i felt i came full circle and my asia period might have been done i wanted to write a book that was contemporary and set in california. i knew i wanted to write a mother daughter story line. that's what i began with. it was the first time i said, this character not necessarily has to be asian. none of these characters necessarily have to be asian. i was of mind opposite of what you are saying happened through the book. what happened was the more i started to research when i discovered warner's, ime wantedo

write. i was feeling older as a person and wanted to translate that into a book. when i thought i would write about the care taking situation and wanted to write about a mother and daughter and i thought was there an aging disease? where children grow old quickly. by the time they are 7 or 8 they look like little old people because they age so quickly. the first thing i asked myself is there a version of this disease for older people. does it start later in a person's life? as i'm researching i discover warner's syndrome and that's how it came to be that particular disease in the book. i thought this works because she would have a life before the disease started to age her in the 20's as opposed to being

very young. more i researched the more i realized that a large population of japanese people seemed to have this genetic defect. it brought me back to the japanese culture even though i was not looking for it. what happened was if she was half japanese. here again you will hear the writing process. as i'm thinking about this and thinking about story line and her parents. if her mother is italian and her father is japanese which would make her half and half the genetic defect would come to the father then things would have to happen if they grew up in california. he grew up in pasadena which means he would be inturned. things start to happen without you looking at it from the beginning when writing a story but as you develop the

characters and the year and the situation and the stories a father would tell a daughter. all this came out the camps, what happened. what he hoped for. what he wished for. all the stories he tells the daughters. some of them would have to cover that interment time and a lot is what happened from my research. all that went in the book. does that answer your question? it's not that i purposely said, now i will advocate this. but if a story line covers a certain aspect of history that you tell it to the greatest truth you can. you know, you talk about the situation and if you inhabit the characters, hopefully, in the right way you try to feel hathey would feel. >> thank you. >> we started reading your book in my classroom a couple of weeks ago.

>> he's lifting the book up. they are disapointed because we haven't gotten to the part you read yet, it's okay the story is not spoiled. i want to thank bobby and alex for coming on a school night. i want to thank you, too. >> you are welcome. >> [laughter]. >> one of the things the book has done is opened their eyes to japan and japanese culture which is new to a lot of them. what are some of the more important aspects of japanese culture that you would want us to take away reading this book? we are fixated on figuring out who the samurai is we have ideas and we are trying to deconstruct the attributes of a samurai. in your opinion what would be useful for us to think about or focus on as we finish the book. we are a third of the way through it. >> one of those kind of questions [laughter].

i will tell you about an e mail i got this entire high school on the east coast is reading the samurai's garden. i started to get 30 e mails. they discovered through the website an e mail which would come directly tow me. i started to figure it out when all the questions were the same. they -- it was the questions which they had to write their essay on. one young woman wrote me and said, i don't know if i have time to read the book can you tell me who the samurai is and where the garredin is? [laughter]. i thought these kids are going to be okay. you know this is our generation coming up. i wrote her and said, you know, read the book. i think for me, because i think every book is a learning process for me. in terms of my culture because i am the first, i don't know about all that needs to be known of

both being chinese and of course being japanese. i get a lot wrong. i cringe when i pronounce a japanese word because i know i'm not say itting correctly. i can get away with it. here i don't know, it's harder to get away with it in the bay area because we are such a melting pot. and so many people who know japanese where i don't. what i discovered i think on the whole, for all cultures both cultures and the writing process itself is the more i writeabout different cultures the more i realize how much alike we are. and if you take anything away take that. take the fact that all humanity is the same. you know the -- culturesar a background for me it makes you who you are. if you are japanese you bow. if you are chinese you don't.

there are certain things that are specific to each culture. but if you are writing characters there are specific things that are everybody. and that's more important to me in that sense. you have the culture's background but if you can understand why a person who lives in that culture feels the way they do or does what they do i think that's the most important thing. does that answer your question? >> yeah. >> thank you. >> you letting me off? [laughter] do i have another story to tell you? i would if i -- >> you seem very conscious of the writer's process you are aware of how you work. you mentioned you changed from a film major to an english major.

can you talk about when you were conscious when you wanted to be a writer. >> as opposed to a film maker? >> yes. >> some writers are not aware of their process as you are and i'm fas nacinated by that. >> when i took my first film class it was so boring. and it had nothing to do about the story that i was watching on the screen. and everything to do about how many frames per second or per minute or whatever it was. i thought, this is not at all what i thought it would be. then i moved from you know, to the technical aspect film writing course i took. it felt technical because i felt i had to be aware of the camera angles. literally aware it had to go down longshot or closeup and it

was interfering with the story line. i graduated from san francisco state and it was creative writing within the english department. i was taking a class much like this. writers on writing and a writer came to speak to a group of young writers the first writer who came was a poet. and i was i fell madly in love with language. i think that's why i'm probably conscious with the writing process because i began with the foundation of language, which is poetry for me. it made me aware of how to use language. not to over use language. you know things like that that aspects of it. i talk a lot about the writing process for a lot of reasons because i think that if you tell what it really means to be a writer people will think oh , it's not -- i think to a large extent you all think we run with the bulls. you know and you think we are

sitting in cafes and i can never write in a cafe because i would watch people too much. how can you sit in a cafe and write a novel? we all have our process. i think the interesting things to talk about is the process how you do it because we all do it differently. i don't run with the bulls or sit in cafes. this is the way i do it. there are many ways to do it and you have to find your own way. >> around the web i googled through me to see what it looked like i saw the big bridge and it looked industrialized. >> there really is love. >> i did. a real place and how you pick the location. i have family in japan and my kids are are in a bilingual program in san francisco that's

japanese. >> i bet she speaks japanese better than i do. my kids might not me. >> when i had the gun i knew there was a [inaudible] and i started writing down things and i thought in my mind's eye, i think it looks like this. and it would be like that i had a small village in mind. there was a part in time i thought, i could go back to japan and go there and see how it looked. i had in the book and in my heart what i thought it was, i almost knew that if i had gone back it wouldn't be the same. so i made the conscious choice of not going. now that you tell me this i'm thankful i didn't i think it would have destroyed what i created in my head. i thought places are best when they are imagined.

i hesitated naming it after a place where my mom said what did exist. i'm glad i didn't go back. making that conscious choice would have changed had i gone back would have changed the direction of the book a lot. >> when i saw it it was so different than how an imagined from reading your books. >> does that teach you never to look up things. always listen to the writer? [laughter]. >> we have time for one more question. >> can't be our essay question. >> she didn't give us a question yet. i wanted to know what made you think of the title like the samurai's garden? >> oh , know the title story. >> i'm sorry. >> quickly. this is actually a publishing

business thing. i had written on the contract because i was reading about samurais and gardens. at the time the contract. i looked and said, oh , the samurai's garden. now they would put untitled. i put dount samurai's garden not thinking that would really with the title. and what happened was when it was time to choose a title my editor had a god awful title she felt was the most brilliant title since the grapes of wrath. it was like this long and everything was in it but the kitchen sink. love, samurai, garden and sushi. it was a terrible title and i didn't like it and i didn't know what to say i had never disagreed. that was the first time i disagree. i said i don't want to look at

my book case and see that book and cringe in 30 years. she called me from new york and said, i don't know why we are going over the title thing let's keep it the samurai's garden. then i was saying, thank you, god and it became the samurai a garden which in the end worked when you decide hathat samurai is in your class you will see how it works. it works in many, many ways. i'm pleased it stayed the samurai's garden. not of anybody's choice but because it was the one we didn't want to fight over anymore. >> okay. >> [laughter]. >> thank you. i >> i think you wanted something else. >> well, i met the samurai and [laughter] >> thank you. >> thank you, gale so much for coming. >> [applause]. thank you.

>> one of the most extraordinary things to me about this program is we are going to be treat todd an extraordinary panorama of style and diversity. we will start off with mr. james cagney. please, welcome the poet james cagney. [applause] >> there is sun. there is sun. there is a snake on the path sunning. there is sun. there is water in the stream, there are daisies, there are

sun. there is a snake on the path sunning, there is sun. there are trees, there are daisies there is a feather there is sun. there is the feather that she gave me there is a feather there is sun. there are daisies there are words trees things there are more things than words, there is sun, there is sun. there are fox tails there are blank there are irises that are blank there is a snake on the path in the path sunning. there is a squirrel in the trash, there is sun. there is water in the stream, there is a squirrel in the strash, there is a snake in the path on the sun sunning. there is is sun. there is song, there is a song being sung by the birds in the sun. there is flavor, there is a feather. there is hair in my mouth from her hug in the sun. there is sun. there is flavor on my tongue.

there is singing there is sun. there is a snake on the path singing in the sun. there is song, there is sun. on the path there is a squirrel in the daisies there is blank in the trash there is a song, there is sun. on the snake there is a squirrel on the blank there are daisies in the trash, there is a snake in the stream singing, there is sun. there is sun. there is a path in the trash, there is hair in the feathers, singing, there is song, there is song, there are birds there is hair in my mouth there is a snake on the path sunning, there is sun, there is sun, there is hair, in my mouth there is singing on the path there is a snake in the trash singing, there is song, there is sun. there are feathers in her hair. there is flavor in the stream, there is a snake on my tongue in the sun, sunning. there is sun. there is sun, there is sing on the sun. there are birds on the grass,

there are squirrels in the trash, there are trees with feathers singing. there is sun. there is a snake on the pass sunning. there is sun. all right. [applause] >> this past saturday at the farmer's market. >> an african brother shoved a basket of boysenberies as if paying a debt they bleed on our finger tips the man smiles proper his hand a gift says too complicated we buy 9 dollars in cherries quite and red and spotd and sweet and sour too, flavors turning in our ouths anxious as police lights we trip over the sister pushing a baby carriage. we know her but couldn't pull

her name from nothing. baby sleeping cheeks soft with petals. 3 year old son digs into our kettle corn sack. later. fish tacos for her. him layian curry chicken for me. watching children bounce in the fountain. pickled cool in water, giggles going off like chinese fire crackers. tiny teeth grudge mashing. 5 you want to fried chicken bites so golden brown. pity another poor mother her catfish, mango shake shook every wrchlt the little girl on the straw never blinked channelling opiuman cesters through the ecstasy of fruit sures. this is us at farmer's market. brother too complicate who had offers an arm for her and me.

a chain of chins along his shoulders. where have you been and why has it taken you so long to come back? >> the piece dedicated to my foster father and cousin on my adopted side. 1, daddy. old crow, jack dan jells understood my father mouthfuls at a time. jim beam and old forester where uncles rolled up in the sufficiented hennesy take it's first breath and hound dog laughter and dominos falling like hail on the dining table. relatives existed through stories and memory ease in like zombies on ropes of camel smoke and demand a texas holdum. no wonder they call it spirits.

spirits vad my father with cower vas yea. spirits made him burn rubber screaming in the driveway. the marianet and tongue were skillets at mid night. i wouldn't see his ass again until the next afternoon. twoshgs johnnie. gee my cousin john edwards volunteered for possession every week. he was certified. ex exor citizenim did nothing. colt 45, crazy horse they demand the sacrifices in blood so bottles would go to the couch friday night. walls kicked until straight jackets lay waiting on the lawn. mama would site visions of gang

boys with metal vent as if it explained anything. it didn't between dusk from the and dawn saturday he was ready to blow the -- up. do you want some of this? oh , no, yes oh , no or yes , i will be damn, i will be damn, i will be damn. [applause] >> this is called someone else's child. and i guess it's a sort of an imagined conversation with a took place in a real moment in my father's hospital room in a matter of weeks before he died. my father is my foster father and there was always in my life this level of awkwardness because i was not biologically his own son. and he and i never got to have

the conversation that i imagined here on page in this piece. so, there is a lot of truth in it. and here we go. someone else's child. >> i'm going to write a poem about you, i said. shall i tell the truth or make something up. what would you write about me. i'd write about the small things like catching my first perch on a cane pole and slapping you up side the head with it. it was the last time i fished you know that you cussed the water black mad. i never touched a fishing pole again. why would you want to write that? silence. do you remember when mom tried to teach me how to ride a bike?

no, he said, let me hear it. why i can't ride a bike. i out weigh my mother by 50 pounds though her effort to help find my balance is more colossal than any man. my father root indeed pockets watches us at a distance like we are on a channel he'd like to turn. that's a sad poem, he said. cant you write nothing happy? not with you in it, i said. but i ain't never hit you, thumped our head once or twice. mostly, i'm stuck remembering what we never did, share something. play catch, even. was not athlete. tried teaching you how to drive. sitting next to me on the freeway holding the steering

wheel sdont count. well ain't had no one to teach me none of those things neither. did you ever hold me when i was a baby, i asked? gnaw, afraid i'd drop you sides you were someone else's child didn't think we would keep you long. thought she was take you back to your people. if you wrote a poem about right now, he said, about us here in this room, how would it go? >> last rights. while sitting with my father waiting for his end white tooth sprouting from his wintry branches i watch the hospital clock. see us men watch one another and

not look at each other for an hour and 15 minutes. it never occurred to either of us to even say, i love you. all you write, he said, are sad poems. what would you have me write? the truth. your poem ought to be called, with no seat and go like this. he did the best he could with what he had and he ain't had nothing accept the blues. >> [applause]. >> the book was published this year by the university of georgia press. it is available at the back of the auditorium this afternoon. it is called blood ties and brown liquor. and he is also been the finalist for the 2006 poetry prize.

please, join me in welcoming mr. sean hill. [applause]. >> i want to read from blood and brown liquor today. this book is about my home town in georgia. it's also where [inaudible] is from. and i started researching the history of [inaudible] and sort of fell into the history of black people there because it was not taught in school. so -- in order to write about the history i had to invent a character to explore this history. the character's name is si loss wright. >> first poem i will read is titled silos write at age 71914. it's about silos follows a

fishing riggel in the shallows. he describes the line in his tablet as much pride in that line as a man and his son. he giggles and goes on. the next letters come easy. with this he will have more than a mark to bind. rambling across the page again and again in messy rows along it flows until he goes off the page's edge. he smiles. he's surprised to hear when his mouth opens. that's mine. so, this really lovely book that georgia put together for me has great painting on the cover. a painting of mcintosh street in georgia painted in the 1940's by a man, frank stanley herring. i