The Crane Wife (Nicholas Roerich Poetry Prize Library)

The Crane Wife was selected from more than eight hundred entries. This brilliant debut volume explores and celebrates the author's Japanese heritage in the great Northwest.

From "Because You Showed Me a Piece of Barbed Wire"
Because you showed me a piece of barbed wire
that had lain on the road
beside a lone sign
marking all that remained of -barracks,
rowed and eclipsed by the shadow
of Heart Mountain, I thought
of my mother beginning her tour of Japan. What
would she say if she saw me with a piece of her past
cupped in her hand?

Sharon Hashimoto is a writing instructor at Highline Community College in Midway, Washington.