Just One Thing with W. Todd Kaneko

W. Todd Kaneko is August's featured poet, and we are so pleased to bring you his gorgeous poem, "Elegy for Mr. Spock." Be sure to check it out if you haven't already. Here, he shares with us the view of the Puget Sound at dawn from the window of his late father's house on Vashon Island and just one thing about "Elegy for Mr. Spock":

"There are a few things that I associate with going to my father’s house when I was a kid. One is late night pro wrestling. Another is Olivia Newton John’s album If You Love Me Let Me Know. And another is Star Trek, which I watched at my father’s house every other Saturday afternoon, even though I wasn’t really into it at the time—it was enough that he thought I wanted to watch it. I think I saw the first two Star Trek movies with my father when they were in theaters, or at least I half-remember seeing those movies with him. At the beginning of Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, Captain Kirk is on the bridge thinking about how empty the ship is with so many of the crew out on a mission, and about the death of his friend Mr. Spock. 'The death of Spock is like an open wound,' he says. 'It seems I have left the noblest part of myself back there.' I rewatch that scene now, about a year and a half after my father’s passing, and I’m like, yeah, Jim. You probably did."