Ichiban

Patricia Aya Williams' Ichiban follows a Japanese mother, an American father, and their daughter from post-WWII Japan to the Gen-X schoolyards of East San Jose. The collection exuberantly insists that "we too / sing America" applies to teenage girls whose tampons charge like a "battering ram in a moat of blood" and to a tough mother who loves watching sumo and rooting for "wrestlers from her prefecture-Ishikawa" and harshly judging them: "Aww he too little / he not gonna make it." After the...