La Chica`s Field Guide to Banzai Living

"La Chica's Field Guide to Banzai Living runs a bow across physical and mental planes to reveal the kingdoms inhabiting them. From the small towns strung along the coast of the Big Island of Hawai'i to the land-locked landscapes of Paraguay to the volcanic surface of Venus, this is a field guide to flora, fauna, and mineralia encountered, real and imagined. Packed tightly into exploratory rocket segments, these poems ignite our gravest flaws to send our grandest potentials into orbit, showering us all in an antidotal salve to viewing any life as ordinary. Banzai has a literal translation of "10,000 years" and was used by the Japanese as a rallying cry in imperialistic and militaristic contexts. Today, the word has a comparatively neutral translation of "Hurrah!" in Japan and beyond. In La Chica's Field Guide to Banzai Living, Hasegawa aims to reclaim banzai, recasting the language of war and blind loyalty into the language of a life and poetry created against racism and harmful norms, and toward tolerance and self-acceptance"--