NAKAGAWA Tatsuo
中川
Born: 12 February 1889 – Died: 28 January 1946
Particulars:
Tatsuo was born in Kumamoto Prefecture in Japan. He was working as a sailor prior to his arrest in Nouméa, Kanaky / New Caledonia when the Pacific War broke out. He was single and listed his brother in Kumamoto Prefecture as his next of kin. He was taken to Australia and was interned at Hay Internment Camp in New South Wales, where approximately 65 francs was taken from him by the authorities. He was admitted to the camp hospital and died of gastric haemorrhage five months after the war ended. His grave is in the Japanese Cemetery in Cowra, New South Wales, Australia.
–Mayu Kanamori
More info:
Jane Joritz-Nakagawa
Artist/s Statement:
‘The Injured Fan’
The architecture of the poem written by me is somewhat collage like. I add my name next to Tatsuo Nakagawa’s to show solidarity – Nakagawa is a common Japanese surname so to what if any degree we are related I am not sure – but we are connected because we belong to the same species of humankind and because I care about what happened to Mr Nakagawa, an unknown stranger forced to live and die in an unfamiliar place. We also have in common the fact that we left our native countries – Mr Nakagawa was working as a sailor in New Caledonia when he was arrested, and I left the USA in 1989 to start a new life in Japan. Mr Nakagawa was born a few years after my paternal grandfather, who I never got to meet, so is of the same generation as my deceased grandparents. Other items to notice in our collage is the use of bare facts about Mr Nakagawa’s life in conjunction with several metaphors, some used satirically. Line four is in italics because it is a borrowing of words from Marianne Moore’s poem, ‘The Fish’, published during Mr Nakagawa’s lifetime. The use of Japanese and English together must be another thing we shared. Mr Nakagawa’s life ended in his mid 50s at the internment camp hospital, months after the war ended. I would like readers to connect the metaphors, image, and design to form a story about, or attitude toward Mr Nakagawa’s imagined life.
Thanks to Mayu Kanamori who contributed the image.
Artist Bio:
Jane Joritz-Nakagawa is the author of about a dozen full length poetry collections. She also sometimes writes prose. Her most recent book ‘Luna’ was published in 2024 . She is also the editor of ‘women : poetry : migration [an anthology]’, a collection which contains poems and short accompanying essays by 50 women living outside their birth countries. She lives in Hamamatsu in Japan.