His introduction said he was so assimilated he did not have the ability to use chopsticks. A small audience gathered to hear John Hawn and Eric Rensberger read their poetry aloud in the Bloomingfoods sunlit patio room Thursday night.
Hawn, known by his pseudonym JL Kato, never knew his biological parents. He was adopted in 1956, at age 2, by an American serviceman and his wife.
Hawn has some theories about the identity of his biological parents, some of which have made their way into his poetry.
Before his hair was gray, he had red whiskers. He outlines his theory that he is the illegitimate child of another American serviceman and a Japanese woman in his poem “Evidence of Red Hair.”
“When I ran into it, I was naïve to think I knew what poetry was,” Hawn said.
Hawn has been writing poetry since high school, but his teacher said he would never develop it until he had leisure time, he said.
He attended IU and received a degree in journalism.
He began writing in earnest in 1999 after being mostly self-taught and working as a copy editor at the Indianapolis Star, he said. He has written more than one hundred poems.
Hawn learned from local poets in Indy and Bloomington he considered better than him, such as Richard Pflum, Stephen Roberts, Doris Lynch and Roger Pfingston. While he didn’t know him personally, Hawn said Etheridge Knight was a major influence in his writing.
“After I immersed myself around poets, I learned that I did know it, and to this day, because I’m not trained in the academia, I do stumble sometimes, but this is where I rely on a strong writer’s group,” Hawn said.
Hawn lives in Beech Grove, Indiana. He has four grown daughters, who are the subject of a humorous poem he wrote about the four of them sharing one mirror.
He has four siblings with whom he has said he is estranged. In his poem “Miyoko’s Ashes,” he describes his siblings arguing over his mother’s ashes, dividing her up between them.
One of his poems, “Ghost Songs,” referenced a song his mother used to sing, “The Tennessee Walts,” which Hawn sang before the audience.
“When I first started reading at open mics, I was terrified of public speaking,” he said. “The paper would literally shake in my hand, but with the help of the poetry community I learned to relax and be a performer.”
Hawn’s personal favorite poem is “Festival of Dolls,” which is about the experiences of his mother and is the most requested poem for him to read.
Hawn also has a book titled “Shadows Set in Concrete” that he is currently selling. It is named after the effect of the shadows ingrained on the walls after the nuclear bombs were dropped on Japan.
Hawn performs these types of readings about 12 times a month, he said. He has performed in front of empty rooms with no one but the host of the venue, but he has also performed at places such as Indiana State University in front of a lecture hall full of people.
“It gives me a chance to hear from poets I normally don’t get to hear,” Hawn said. “It gives me a chance to connect to poets in other communities.”
