Bio
In Japanese, kokoro means “with open heart.” This is how Endo first came to poetry, learning to appreciate words and sounds from his adopted-by-heart Russian Jewish Uncle who urged him to become a poet while in high school. But Endo was afraid “what poetry could do to a career.” He began writing poetry when studying for the Bar Exam. While practicing law in the City Solicitor’s Office of Philadelphia in Health and Human Services, he became a member of the Etheridge Knight’s Free People’s Poetry Workshop of Philadelphia (Etheridge called him “Little Brother”).
Endo has read his poems at multiple venues in Pennsylvania and in Delaware, including Philadelphia Free Library, Logan Circle, Holmesburg Prison, Haverford College, Kent County Library, Dover Library, Lewes Library, Rehobeth Arts League, Gallery 37. His poems have appeared in The American Poetry Review, The Antioch Review, The Cortland Review, the Delaware Poetry Review, Poetry, and have been exhibited at Mellon Bank in Philadelphia, at the Biggs Museum of American Art. “Susumu, My Name” inspired jazz artist Sumi Tonooka's orchestration, “Out of Silence,” which appeared on PBS, and was also reprinted in the Philadelphia Inquirer. Endo received a Professional Grant in Poetry in 2011 from the Delaware Division of the Arts and teaches poetry and literature to older adults at the University of Delaware Osher Institute in Dover, Delaware.
Vision
πάντων χρημάτων μέτρον ἐστὶν ἄνθρωπος,
τῶν μὲν ὄντων ὡς ἔστιν, τῶν δὲ οὐκ ὄντων ὡς οὐκ ἔστιν.
"Man is the measure of all things: of things which are, that they are,
and of things which are not, that they are not"
Protagoras
After an evening of snow fall, blinking in late-morning sun, after traveling over four overlooks at Canyon de Chelly, I gazed down to the canyon below upon Spider Rock-- all whispery quiet, its sandstone spire worn and shaped as by a river, movement of time's particles. According to Navajo legend, Spider Woman once sat upon Spider Rock, weaving the cosmos, her awe gathering a people together. I believe poetry to be just like that—through an inward swipe—a whispering, a calling forth, shamanistic, diffusing boundaries, reconnecting threads and lines, binding corners of our imagination. Poetry can be a shout, or a breeze, sending something deeply held, into our Canyon. Poetry can engender seeds latent within the ground—vital—propelling us unexpectedly in furrowing waves that may overcome, and pass through, if we stop to listen.
This I Believe
I believe that the Ancient Greeks got it all mostly right;
that even then, there was cosmopolitanism, the exchange and trading of ideas
leading to the good and the beautiful over a wide sea;
That the good and the beautiful are always created through minute particulars
and make patterns and examples; that the universe innately has swerve;
That, at our best, we can do nuance;
I believe, as the Delphic Oracle would say: Do nothing in excess (except Good);
Know thyself (and through others); Hard is Good;
I believe, like Protagoras, in an experimental attitude toward things;
that man is the measure of all things, of things which are,
of things which are not, that, of the things which are not,
there resides mystery one must respect, of things which one can only believe;
It is Good to believe in kindness;
I believe in enthusiasm, that all Good and Beautiful may come from this;
I believe in the chance encounter, when open to enthusiasm, that may lead
to creation of all kinds;
I believe in striving to walk fully in the footsteps of others, in experiencing encounters
strange and beautiful;
I believe that the best way of relating to the universe is through gratitude;
I believe in teachers and in learning, that teaching is learning;
that learning is a learning how to teach;
I believe life and literature speak in multiple and diverse tongues
and with diverse influences and cultures; that we can only see through our refractive lenses;
I believe that as we get older we may see more, frame more, contextualize, more, so long as we maintain our second grader inside, alive; that we call this wisdom;
I believe that Chaucer and the Wife of Bath speak personally to me, that Dickinson
opens my spirit up, that Whitman constantly gifts himself to me, that all minds speak to other
minds and themselves; that we continually change our minds
because that is what a second grader would do.
Work
Dream
My name means progress in Japanese,
the progress of prosperity and good fortune.
The dust that cleaved
to makeshift barracks in Arizona,
whetted my parents’
thirst for the American Dream,
but my luck will have to be different.
I want my wheels to skim like blades in the wind across all ruts.
I want my wheels to spin so fast, we stand still.
Are you with me? Then, we may
whisper, in summer breeze,
in susurrus of swept reeds,
Susumu.
The Great Wave
The Great Wave at Kanegawa unfurls,
always curling, always roaring,
within the chest, overcoming everything,
bass drum beats within an ear of memory;
always curling, always roaring,
all motion becoming one wave,
bass drum beats within an ear of memory
undergirding harmonizing octaves:
all motion becoming one wave --
I never saw it, did you ever see it? –
undergirding harmonizing octaves:
reality, imagined reality, the one, the same.
I never saw it, did you ever see it?
Curls and sharp corners, curlicues,
reality, imagined reality, the one, the same:
our music keeps on changing:
curls and sharp corners, curlicues
translated in ways to tell—
Our music keeps on changing,
dots like atoms or ants or circumstance
translated in ways to tell,
transporting us to a different place,
dots like atoms or ants or circumstance --
we are tossed and turned in space
transporting us to a different place,
with the movement of history’s events.
We are tossed and turned in space,
the memories with which we are aligned.
With the movement of history’s events
within the chest, overcoming everything,
the memories with which we are aligned:
the Great Wave at Kanegawa unfurls.