From a Three-Cornered World presents 60 poems by James Mitsui, 25 of them new. His poetry has, over two decades’ time and three previous volumes, asserted a strong and significant voice within the growing tradition of Asian American literature.

Mitsui’s poems contain a family history of immigration to the Pacific Northwest from Japan and the assimilation of American culture over three generations, including the relocation of Japanese Americans during World War II. His vignettes of family life are gems of bittersweet humor and tenacious affection, revealing a deft and earthly poetic charm. Mitsui ranges over many subjects and deals with major themes in language that is spare yet lyrical, expressing historical insight in profoundly moving imagery.

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"The poems about the relocation of some 120,000 West Coast Japanese Americans during the 1940s derive from the whole Mitsui family’s travails; they are movingly effective and wryly laconic criticisms of America’s mean-spirited, racist, and wrongful treatment of Japanese Americans in a moment of national hysteria."

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"This collection is largely a personal documentary exploring the relationship between family and history that spans a cycle beginning with the migration, marriage, and internment of Mitsui’s Nisei parents, and circling around with his contemplations on fulfilling the many roles in his life: son, teacher, friend, husband, grandparent. The poems depict the strength of what it is that binds us to the other people in our lives as testimony to a life lived well—that we have loved and have been loved."

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"Mitsui’s poems are noteworthy for an honest lyricism rooted in specific details. . . . [His] poems express the wisdom gleaned from a centuries-old culture."

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"Through the use of precise details arranged in carefully crafted lines, Mitsui’s work explores the internment camps of World War II, his family ties an struggles, and his lifelong involvement with poetry and teaching. . . . This is poetry that has placed experiences of significance in an order that resonates and that should withstand the test of time."