Sky Country

Many of these poems revolve around the immigration experiences of the author's two grandmothers: her maternal grandmother, who came from Korea after the Korean War; and her paternal grandmother, who immigrated from Japan in 1914. They also deal with the mass imprisonment of Japanese Americans during WWII, following Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor. When her father was 16, he was incarcerated at Topaz Concentration Camp in Utah.

One of the goals of this collection is to give voice to those who have been historically silenced. All of the voices in this collection are female, and many of them are women who have often been left out of a grander narrative.

Kitano has spent much of her career studying the Japanese American experience, and regularly attends the Circle for Asian American Literary Studies (CAALS) at the American Literature Association, and the U.S.-Japan Council annual conference.

Poems from Sky Country have been published widely in such places as: Asian American Literary Review; Atticus Review; Blue Lyra Review; Chicago Quarterly Review; Codex; Connotation Press; Crab Orchard Review; Miramar; Newfound Journal; The Pinch; Smartish Pace; Tar River Poetry; and Wildness.