Interviewed by Leonard Chan (LC)

Frances Kakugawa is an author, poet, and retired teacher and educator. “The Outhouse Poet” is Frances’ nineteenth published book.

I first became aware of Frances and her writing nearly 21 years ago when I read her book “Mosaic Moon: Caregiving Through Poetry, Easing the Burden of Alzheimer's Disease.” I started corresponded with Frances back in December of 2008 and the very next month we had a reading with her at one of our January poetry events. That same month, she made her first contribution to our newsletter with an interview to promote her appearance at our poetry event.

Since then, we’ve kept in touch and had other events with her even when the AACP newsletter was on hiatus for over nine years. Last year she even participated in our January “AAPI Poetry For Peace, Love, and Understanding” event at the San Mateo Main Library.

As you may gather from reading her writings, she has many people that she has known and called friend. I am happy to be considered among them.

LC: Hello, Frances. Thank you for giving me this chance to interview you again. After the release of your book “Can I Have Your Pearl Necklace?” we were kind of wondering if you were going to do another book since that book had some finality tones. I think you even told me that you weren’t sure you’d be doing another one. I am so glad that you have, partly because it gives me another opportunity to interview you and to be in touch with you again.

In one chapter, you mentioned that you got started on this one after your doctor told you that he thought you would live to a hundred. Did you have a lot of notes or thoughts for this book that you were, no pun intended, dying to tell? You have so many people and encounters that you write about. Do you work from memory, keep a notebook with you, or do you journal or write a diary when you find the time? Do you have any suggestions for the prospective writers out there? ...

By Leonard Chan

Back in January of 2004, we started featuring poetry in our January newsletters (check our newsletter archive to see the other editions). I was usually able to find actual published poets to feature in these newsletters. Along with these professionals, sometimes I was successful in persuading our staff and volunteers to contribute haiku, tanka, and other forms of poetry.

Ever since then, I’ve made it a point that my first writing for the year would be a poem. I did this even in the years when the AACP newsletter was in hiatus (February 2011 through April 2020).

During the last two years, I was thinking that I would retire featuring AACP’s staff poetry for display. I couldn’t convince anyone to join me in this endeavor. However, with all the craziness of the world these days, I was feeling like I needed an outlet for my thoughts.

Since we didn’t have a second article for this month, I decided that I would take this opportunity to once again indulge my ego into believing that I could actually write some poems that you may want to read.

Please, if you’d rather not read my amateurish attempts at poetry, don’t read any further.