James Fujinami Moore
James Fujinami Moore is a queer Asian American poet and the author of indecent hours (Four Way Books, 2022), which was the winner of both the Great Lakes Colleges Association New Writers Award in Poetry and the Lambda Literary Award in Bisexual Poetry, as well as a finalist for the Golden Poppy’s Martin Cruz Smith Award. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in the Academy of American Poets Poem-A-Day, Asimov's Science Fiction, Barrow Street's 4x2, Boston Review, The Brooklyn Rail, Guesthouse, Jet Fuel Review, The Margins, Pacifica Literary Review, and Prelude. He has received fellowships from Poets House, Bread Loaf, and the Frost Place, and received his MFA from Hunter College in 2016. He lives in Los Angeles. Source
Diagnostic Quiz for Human Ghost
Over the past two weeks, please list the items you have lost.
At the present moment, do you know the location & number of your teeth?
(in grams) Please estimate the weight of each of the following: Left lung, half-liver,
three fingers on your right hand.
(in miles) Please estimate the distance from the back of your skull to the skin of your
eye.
Over the past two weeks, please estimate the number of times you’ve attempted to
start a conversation and failed (including, but not limited to: grocery stores, living
rooms, when you are alone.)
(in incandescence) How much light passes through you? Is it enough to write a letter?
Pick a letter. Pick a new name.
Can you hear the woman singing?
What was your death’s taxonomy? Where is its kingdom & domain?
How important do you feel to others?
Are you sitting atop the creaking hinges of something only you can see?
Are you certain there is no part of your body that is missing.
Are you certain there is nothing missing at all.
Published:
2024
Length:
Regular
Literary Movements:
Contemporary
Anthology Years:
2025
Themes:
Body & Body Image
Death & Loss
Poetic Form
Literary Devices:
Anaphora
a figure of speech in which words repeat at the beginning of successive clauses, phrases, or sentences
Asyndeton
the absence of a conjunction (for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so…) between phrases and within a sentence
Imperative
an instruction or a command
Surrealism
a style of art and literature in which ideas, images, and objects are combined in a strange, dreamlike way.
Template Poem
a poem in which a poet uses a predetermined form to structure the poem. For example: a multiple-choice format, a recipe, directions, the Pledge of Allegiance, the Miranda Rights. A template poem borrows an already established form to provide structure and commentary.
Varied Punctuation
diverse use of punctuation.