Sally Ito Knihy

"During the Second World War, approximately 4,000 Japanese-Canadians were "repatriated" to Japan. Among those Canadians sent back were members of author and poet Sally Ito's family. As a Japanese Canadian child growing up in the suburbs of Edmonton, Alberta, Ito's early life was a lone island of steamed tofu and vegetables amidst a sea of pot roast and mashed potatoes. Through the Redress Movement, Parliamentary acknowledgement of wartime injustices, and the restoration of citizenship to those exiled to Japan, Ito considers her role as an author, meditating on culture and identity. Later, she returns to Japan and re-lives the displacement of her family through interviews, letters, and shared memories. Her journey compellingly weaves her family's path through the darkest days of the Pacific War, its devastating aftermath, and the repercussions on cultural identity for all the Emperor's orphans."--

In her fourth book of poetry, Sally Ito traverses the complex channels and tributaries of a heart mapped by the ineffable pull of family and faith. In Ito's careful hands, this same heart becomes ocean and cathedral, a hallowed space in which poetic organ-song crystalizes into poems resonant with hope, love, doubt, and longing. Heart's Hydrography charts the vital ebb and flow between the personal and the divine.