Finalists for the 1992-1993 Los Angeles Times Book Prizes : POETRY

LEGENDS FROM CAMP Poems by Lawson Fusao Inada (Coffee House Press). Representative of the Populist writing that has grown with multiculturalism, this book is full of songs, paintings, photographs, prayers, and stories that, the author tells us, “just happen to look like poetry.” Inada, who describes himself as an “Ethnic Minority Third World Asian American Poet” presents a title-piece meditation on the Japanese internment camps during World War II, but the collection also concerns itself with a range of other subjects, from “Thelonious Monk in the Redwoods” and “Listening to Hmong Radio” to “Poem for Television.”

The Los Angeles Times Book Prize finalists and winners are selected in each category by an independent panel of judges. Winners will be announced in the Book Review issue of October 31.