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Mentorship Session: Patrick Rosal & Debbie Yee

Kundiman’s summer retreat was a life-changing experience for me. I had the chance to be mentored by established poets whose work I have long admired. I participated in intensive workshops that were among the best I have ever experienced. And perhaps most importantly, I discovered a supportive and dynamic community of young writers, deeply engaged with each other’s work, who are constantly giving new meaning to what it is to be an Asian American poet. As a professor who teaches courses in poetry and Asian American literature, I spend much of my professional life thinking about Asian American poetry. But I have only known other Asian American writers as individual friends—vital interlocutors with whom I can exchange ideas and concerns—not as part of an organic community.

What I saw at the Kundiman retreat was an image of what a true community of Asian American poets might look like. Remarkably enough, there was nothing predetermined, dogmatic, or doctrinaire about what being Asian American meant in this setting—in part because of the diversity of the participants, who came to the retreat from a wide range of ethnic, geographic, and educational backgrounds. Instead, the Asian American was present as a kind of confidence behind everything, a sense of being able to present one’s best self and riskiest work without fear. Being surrounded by other Asian American writers created not a sense of constraint but one of freedom.

--Timothy Yu