Masaki Takahashi is the founder of The Poetry Room Open Mic at The Robin Theatre in Lansing. He’s also been the city’s poet laureate since 2022.
As poet laureate, his goals have been to promote the works of people of color, and to introduce the community to the world of slam poetry.
WKAR’s Scott Pohl talks with Masaki Takahashi about one of his poems.
Interview Transcript
Scott Pohl: You've come to us today with a poem called Butcher My Name. Tell me a little bit about it.
Masaki Takahashi: With my poetry, I like to really be encouraging, and my name is Masaki, and sometimes throughout my entire life, especially my childhood, it would be mispronounced. People would say ‘sorry if I butcher your name.’ That saying to me always felt a little bit weird, and the importance of name. I never Anglicized my name and I had to live with that, and I thought it was really empowering.
If we look at what people call like when Christopher Columbus called the indigenous people Indians, my entire childhood, we were taught they were Indians, when they weren't. And I think it's so important when somebody misnames you that you correct them.
Pohl: Well, I'm excited to hear it. Here's Masaki Takahashi. I hope I haven't butchered your name. The poem is called Butcher My Name.
Takahashi:
Butcher My Name
As the meat clerk yells out
Order up for
Makeshi?
ummm…Miyakee_____?
Is it Masocko___
It is you?
It’s Masaki, actually
I think to myself,
after I correct the pronunciation of my name
Where, Do these other letters come from?
Miyaki? Really?
and why is this person chuckling
And maybe I would find the irony hilarious
If I wasn’t so annoyed
waiting for my order in this deli
while the cashier apologizes for
butchering my name
but at this point, I’m used to it
My name is the fat that holds
the flavor of my homeland
It has too much umami
for this country’s taste
So when my name is being chopped down
by a meat cleaver mouth
I correct them.
My name is the proud wave of a tattered flag
It is my address you can tell where I am from.
Because even though
They don’t think a name defines a person
Mine gives me definition
My name, is Masaki Takahashi
The pride of mother
The only remnants of my father I have left
My name means high bridge, flourishing tree.
As if my parents were prophets
knowing of the troubled water
I would have to encounter
While trying to stay rooted in this life
My name does not mean roadkill to their lead foot lips
Speeding too fast to notice the syllables they ran over.
My name is not the carcass these vultures get to pick at.
I can remember
always having to fight for this name
school yard bullies hunting me like dead meat
Kids who heard my name at recess
and turned the jungle gym into a kill cage
Who wouldn’t let me play on the swings
so I learned_ how to swing
Busted lip, black eye, swollen fists
I have bled for this name
My name will not submit
to their slaughterhouse sensibility
It will not be anglicized for resumes
Or change for anyone’s convenience
My name is not appropriate to appropriate
To cut into model minority pieces
for their charcuterie spread acceptance
My name is Masaki
It is the one my mother gave me.
the one I call home.
A family recipe
that I was made from
and I would rather starve
than ever let anyone just
Butcher My Name
Pohl: That's great! And it turns out I did butcher your name, and you're not even reprimanding me for that. Tell me about that.
Takahashi: I also say Masaki, because that is kind of an American way to say the name in the pronunciation. My name is Japanese and it's Masaki. That's what my mom calls me. But I also have a little bit, like, Americanized it a little bit.
And I've just been Masaki for my entire life. So it kind of stuck.
Pohl: Masaki Takahashi is Lansing's poet laureate, and we're excited here at WKAR to bring you poetry from time to time. I want to thank you for coming in. We hope to hear from you again on the program and perhaps some of your other friends and acquaintances in poetry over the course of time.
Takahashi: Thank you. Thank you, Scott, for having me. This was great and fun.
