A Thousand Cranes Between Us: A Tribute to Sadako Sasaki

Junnosuke Y.

• Artist Statement

  This poem is deeply personal to me because as a Japanese-American, although I grew up far from Hiroshima, her cranes have always symbolized a part of my identity, and I wanted to honor not only the tragedy she endured, but the quiet strength she embodied as she folded her thousand paper cranes. While writing this piece, I kept thinking about how someone so young could influence an entire nation’s direction, and what it means to inherit a history I did not live, yet still feel deeply responsible to carry. Each image, each fold of a crane in the poem, reflects her quiet bravery that still reaches people like me generations later.

• Creative Statement

  Creativity in poetry means shaping truth into language and words by finding the image, sound, or silence that reveals what ordinary speech cannot. It’s the freedom to turn emotion into something tangible and alive.