Cathedral
We Hereby Refuse: Japanese American Resistance to Wartime Incarceration

31 Letters and 13 Dreams

Each letter is written from a specific place that Hugo has made his own (a “triggering town,” as he has called it elsewhere) to a friend, a fellow poet, an old love.

We read over the poet’s shoulder as the town triggers the imagination, the friendship is re-opened, the poet’s selfhood is explored and illuminated.

The “dreams” turn up unexpectedly (as dreams do) among the letters; their haunting images give further depth to the poet’s exploration.

Are we overhearing them?

Who is the “you” that dreams?

More Adult, Non-Juvenile Books

  • 1915: Manhattan’s Book Row, an eclectic jumble of forty bookshops along Fourth Avenue, is the mecca for rare book buyers from around the world, and the haunt of locals looking for a bargain. It is also the target of the most vicious censor in American history—Anthony Comstock. And home to three sisters who vow to stop him.

  • In a moment of levity during the season's first snowfall, Jack and Mabel build a child out of snow. The next morning the snow child is gone -- but they glimpse a young, blonde-haired girl running through the trees.

  • Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872 1906) overcame racism and poverty to become one of the best-known authors in America, and the first African American to earn a living from his poetry, fiction, drama, journalism, and lectures.