Poetry Prize winner Janine Joseph writes about her Kundiman–sponsored reading at the Library of Congress
July 22: Kundiman at Word for Word Poetry
Word for Word Poetry welcomes Kundiman for a summer night of contemporary Asian American poetry in the park!
FEATURING Michelle Chan Brown, Cathy Linh Che, Eugenia Leigh, Sally Wen Mao, & Patrick Rosal
7:00pm – 8:30pm | Bryant Park Reading Room
* This event was funded in part by Poets & Writers, Inc. with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature. *
Bios:
MICHELLE CHAN BROWN’s Double Agent was the winner of the 2011 Kore First Book Award, judged by Bhanu Kapil. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Blackbird, Cimarron Review, Linebreak, The Missouri Review, Quarterly West, Sycamore Review, Witness, and others.
CATHY LINH CHE is the author of Split (Alice James, 2014), winner of the Kundiman Poetry Prize. A Vietnamese American poet from Los Angeles and Long Beach, CA, she received her BA from Reed College and her MFA from New York University. She has been awarded fellowships and residencies from Poets & Writers, The Fine Arts Work Center at Provincetown, Kundiman, Hedgebrook, Poets House, The Asian American Literary Review, The Center for Book Arts, The Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s Workspace Residency, and a Jerome Foundation Travel Grant.
EUGENIA LEIGH is the author of a full-length collection of poetry, Blood, Sparrows and Sparrows (Four Way Books, 2014), which was a finalist for both the National Poetry Series and the Yale Series of Younger Poets. Her writing has appeared in numerous publications including PANK Magazine, North American Review, The Collagist, and the Best New Poets 2010 anthology.
SALLY WEN MAO is a Chinese American poet. She earned a BA from Carnegie Mellon University and an MFA from Cornell University. Mao is the recipient of fellowships from Kundiman and the Bucknell Seminar for Younger Poets as well as the 2010 RHINO Poetry Editors’ Prize. Her first book, Mad Honey Symposium, appears from Alice James Books in 2014.
PATRICK ROSAL is the author of three full-length poetry collections. His most recent, Boneshepherds (2011), was named a small press highlight by the National Book Critics Circle and a notable book by the Academy of American Poets. His other two books are My American Kundiman (2006), and Uprock Headspin Scramble and Dive (2003). His collections have been honored with the Association of Asian American Studies Book Award, Global Filipino Literary Award and the Asian American Writers Workshop Members' Choice Award. In 2009, he was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship to the Philippines. He is co-founding editor of Some Call It Ballin', a literary sports quarterly.
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Facebook Event
RAIN INFORMATION:
In case of rain, events are held under a tent at the Reading Room. In case of severe weather, please check bryantpark.org for the indoor location.
Interview with April Naoko Heck
Cathy Linh Che: Your book A Nuclear Family came out this spring. Congratulations! Could you talk a little about the book's title?
April Naoko Heck: Thanks!
The title A Nuclear Family works on several levels: My Japanese great-grandmother was a survivor of Hiroshima, and on the day the bomb fell, my mother was in the womb about twenty miles away in Hiroshima prefecture. My mother later went on to marry my white, American father––who, ironically, worked for a nuclear power plant through the 1980s. During that time––during most of my childhood in Ohio––my little sister, our parents, and I made up a "nuclear family," in that utterly romantic sense of the term.
It occurs to me how new the word “nuclear” is––I just checked the etymology for “nucleus,” which I will share for my fellow word nerds: “1704, "kernel of a nut," 1708, "head of a comet," from Latin nucleus "kernel," from nucula "little nut," . . . . Modern atomic meaning is 1912.”
Yes, “A Nutty Family”––that’s accurate too.
Cathy: We attended all three Kundiman retreats together and graduated together. Why did you apply, and what have you found there as a fellow?
April: In the months leading up to the retreat, I felt lost and demoralized as a writer in New York City. My manuscript was getting rejected from a million places. At the same time, I was working with literary stars, in proximity to, but not part of the glitterati. (Of course, that term is smoke and mirrors; I only had to talk to my non-writer friend to realize how distorted my perspective was, because he hadn’t even heard of writers I envied!)
At my first retreat, I cried as much as I laughed, often in the same breath. The retreat’s workshops were the first time I’d ever studied writing with Asian American faculty. And even though all of us poets came from different places, the common patterns in our histories and struggles to assimilate made for richer conversations and deeper sense of belonging than I’d ever experienced in an academic setting. Kundiman was super vitamin to my creative spirit. It was reinvigorated courage and motivation. It was detox, adrenaline, recovery. It was, and is, my poetry home.
Cathy: What advice would you give to a poet who wants to publish a first book?
Take your time, be patient, and aim high. Everyone should send poems to The New Yorker. Everyone should send their manuscript to the Yale Series of Younger Poets Prize. Over time your best poems will find the right homes, and your manuscript will find the right press. Don’t compare yourself to others. Just do your work with as much joy as you can muster, trust in the process, and, maybe above all, help your friends. The rewards of the latter continue to surprise and delight me.
April Naoko Heck was born in Tokyo and moved to the U.S. with her family when she was seven. A Kundiman Fellow, she has been awarded residencies from the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts and Vermont Studio Center. A Nuclear Family, her first collection of poems, was released by UpSet Press in spring 2014 and is available on Amazon. Photo by Rachel Eliza Griffiths; book cover by Bianca Stone.
May 30: Debut Ball: Reading, Pinata, Dance with Sally Wen Mao, R.A. Villanueva, Tarfia Faizullah, and Cathy Linh Che at AAWW
2014 will go down as an historic year for poetry. We're feting Sally Wen Mao's debut Mad Honey Symposium. Dave Eggers likes its "gritty, world-wise sense of humor that gives her work heavyweight swagger.” Also just released: Cathy Linh Che's Split, a tender exploration of war, diaspora, and violence, and Tarfia Faizullah's Seam, based on interviews with women survivors of the 1971 Pakistani army atrocities Dhaka, Bangladesh. R.A.Villanueva will preview his new book Reliquaria, due out later this year, which discusses, among other things, the "Bodies" exhibition.
Asian American Writers' Workshop
Friday, May 30, 8pm
112 W. 27th Street, Suite 600
New York, NY 10001
Facebook event page here: https://www.facebook.com/events/293294817493674/
We're celebrating with a reading, of course, but in place of wine and polite conversation afterwards we're throwing a pinata bash and dance party.
Sally Wen Mao is the author of a forthcoming book of poems, Mad Honey Symposium (Alice James Books, 2014), the winner of the 2012 Kinereth Gensler Award. Her work has been anthologized in The Best American Poetry 2013 and is published or forthcoming Colorado Review, Guernica, Gulf Coast, Indiana Review, Third Coast, and West Branch, among others. The recipient of fellowships from Kundiman and Bread Loaf Writer's Conference, she holds a B.A. from Carnegie Mellon University and an M.F.A. from Cornell University, where she is currently a lecturer.
R.A. Villanueva is the author of Reliquaria, winner of the 2013 Prairie Schooner Book Prize. A founding editor of Tongue: A Journal of Writing & Art, his honors include the 2013 Ninth Letter Literary Award for poetry and fellowships from Kundiman and The Asian American Literary Review. His writing has appeared widely in journals and anthologies including AGNI, The Common, DIAGRAM, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, and Virginia Quarterly Review. He lives in Brooklyn.
Tarfia Faizullah is the author of Seam (Southern Illinois University Press, 2014), winner of the 2012 Crab Orchard Series in Poetry’s First Book Award. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Ploughshares,The Missouri Review, Passages North, New Ohio Review, Crab Orchard Review, The Southern Review, Mead, Poetry Daily, Mid-American Review, and elsewhere. A Kundiman fellow, she is a graduate of the Virginia Commonwealth University program in creative writing.
Cathy Linh Che is a Vietnamese American poet from Los Angeles, CA. She has received awards from The Asian American Literary Review, The Center for Book Arts, The Fine Arts Work Center at Provincetown, Hedgebrook, Kundiman, The Lower Manhattan Cultural Council's Workspace Residency, and Poets & Writers. She is a founding editor of Paperbag.
Co-sponsored by Asian American Writers' Workshop.
March 29: Cathy Linh Che, Paul Tran, and Ocean Vuong present New Vietnamese Poetry at Split This Rock
March 29 New Vietnamese Poetry: A Group Reading & Discussion
Cathy Linh Che, Paul Tran, Ocean Vuong
Beacon Hotel, Beacon Room [Map]
Saturday, March 29, 2014
11:30am – 1:00pm
The Vietnam War continues to inform public discourse, scholarship, and national policies on race, empire, and the struggle for human rights. This layered roundtable and reading will excavate voices from the diaspora’s exiled. Three Vietnamese American poets will share their work and lead a discussion on the Vietnam War and its legacies in new Vietnamese poetry, exploring death, ghosts, belonging, displacement, memory, debt, intergenerational trauma, and sexual assault. It will examine how poetry and spoken word recover the history of marginalized peoples and the war’s connection to US colonialism throughout the world. Sponsored by Kundiman, an organization dedicated to the creation and cultivation of Asian American poetry.
Cathy Linh Che is the author of Split (Alice James, 2014), winner of the 2012 Kundiman Poetry Prize.
A Vietnamese American poet from Los Angeles and Long Beach, CA, she received her BA from Reed College and her MFA from New York University. She has been awarded fellowships and residencies from Poets & Writers, The Fine Arts Work Center at Provincetown, Kundiman, Hedgebrook, Poets House, The Asian American Literary Review, The Center for Book Arts, and The Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s Workspace Residency.
A founding editor of the online journal Paperbag, she is currently Program Associate for Readings & Workshops (East) at Poets & Writers and Manager of Kundiman.
She currently lives in Brooklyn, NY.
Paul Tran grew up in San Diego, CA. His mother escaped from Vietnam in 1989 and raised him as a single-parent in the United States. Being the first in his family to graduate high school and attend college, Paul is fascinated by the promise and transformative power of education.
Since 2005, Paul has facilitated workshops and trainings for youth organizers throughout the United States. He designs curriculum around race, power, and the potential of arts activism. As an organizer and mentor, Paul has earned awards from the Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. (2006), Prudential Spirit of Community (2007), Gloria Barron Prize for Young Heroes (2008), California Museum & Office of the Governor and First Lady Maria Shriver (2009), Parents, Families & Friends of Lesbians & Gays (2010), and funding from Qualcomm, Fish & Richardson, United Way San Diego, and the University of California, San Diego.
Ocean Vuong is the author of two chapbooks: No (YesYes Books, 2013) and Burnings (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2010), which was an American Library Association’s Over The Rainbow selection. A recipient of a 2013 Pushcart Prize, he has received fellowships from Kundiman, Poets House, The Elizabeth George Foundation, the Saltonstall Foundation For the Arts, as well as the 2012 Stanley Kunitz Prize for Younger Poets and an Academy of American Poets Prize. Poems appear in Poetry, The Nation, American Poetry Review, Quarterly West, Guernica, The Normal School, Beloit Poetry Journal, and Denver Quarterly, amongst others. Work has also been translated into Hindi, Korean, Vietnamese, and Russian.
Born in Saigon, Vietnam, he currently resides in New York City where he reads chapbook submissions as the managing editor of Thrush Press. He thinks you’re perfect.
March 19: AALR Local/Express Brooklyn Book Release with Cathy Linh Che, April Naoko Heck, Eugenia Leigh, R.A. Villanueva, and more!
Wednesday, March 19th, 2014, 7pm
Dumbo Sky
10 Jay Street #903
Brooklyn, New York
STORYTELLING/OPEN MIC FEATURING (in formation):
Jaishri Abichandani
Tina Chang
Cathy Linh Che (AALR A Lettre Fellow)
Curtis Chin
April Naoko Heck
Eugenia Leigh (AALR A Lettre Fellow)
Ed Lin
Swati Marquez
Peter Ong
Zohra Saed
RA Villanueva (AALR A Lettre Fellow)
YaliniDream
& Nancy Bulalacao, hosting the mic
"They were out there all around us: a startling array of offbeat, outspoken, and idealistic Asian American artists, activists, entrepreneurs, and organizers who converged [in] New York City in the '90s—most of them, like us, a double "second generation," the children of immigrants and students of the first wave of Asian American Studies.... This collection is a relief map of unexplored history. But it is also a first draft of the future." - Jeff Yang from foreword of Local/Express: Asian American Arts and Culture 90s NYC.
Come celebrate the release of a new anthology by The Asian American Literary Review that captures some of the voices, reflections, and energy of Asian American NYC in the 90s with artists active then and now!
The Facebook event is here: https://www.facebook.com/events/214988622034254/
Lantern Review previews 2014 books by Cathy Linh Che, Oliver de la Paz, Tarfia Faizullah, Sally Wen Mao, Eugenia Leigh, W. Todd Kaneko, and R.A. Villanueva.
Congrats, dear fellows!
From Lantern Review editor Iris A. Law:
"Today, just in time for the start of the year of the lunar new year, we’re finishing off our two-part roundup of books that we’re looking forward to in 2014. Last week’s post (part 1) focused on recently published titles, while today’s (part 2) focuses on forthcoming books that are due out later this year.
Note: the books discussed below are divided by category according to whether they are currently available for pre-order, or whether specific details of their release have, as of this posting, yet to be announced. For each category, books are listed alphabetically by author."
Available for Pre-order
Split by Cathy Linh Che (forthcoming from Alice James Books in April 2014)
Turn by Wendy Chin-Tanner (forthcoming from Sibling Rivalry Press in March 2014)
Post Subject by Oliver de la Paz (forthcoming from U of Akron Press in August 2014)
Seam by Tarfia Faizullah (forthcoming from SIU Press in March 2014)
Mad Honey Symposium by Sally Wen Mao (forthcoming from Alice James Books in May 2014)
Forthcoming (Specific Details to Come)
Picture Dictionary by Kristen Eliason (forthcoming from Flaming Giblet in 2014)
Blood, Sparrows and Sparrows by Eugenia Leigh (forthcoming from Four Way Books in fall 2014)
The Dead Wrestler Elegies by W. Todd Kaneko (forthcoming from Curbside Splendor in 2014)
Reliquaria by R. A. Villanueva (forthcoming from U of Nebraska Press in fall 2014)
For the full post, click on the link below:
Oct. 5 Kundiman Poetry Booth with Hossannah Asuncion, Cathy Linh Che, Evan Chen, Cynthia Arrieu-King, and Sally Wen Mao
KUNDIMAN POETRY BOOTH
Hossannah Asuncion, Evan Chen, Cynthia Arrieu-King, Sally Wen Mao, and Cathy Linh Che
1PM - 2PM | YWCA Ground Floor Meeting Room
30 3rd Ave
Brooklyn, NY 11217
Want a poem written for you? We’re taking requests. Meet some hot emerging poets and give them a prompt. They’ll write a poem for you on the spot. Featuring Hossannah Asuncion (Fragments of Loss), Evan Chen, Cynthia Arrieu-King (Manifest), Sally Wen Mao (Mad Honey Symposium), and Cathy Linh Che, the winner of the 2012 Kundiman Poetry Prize.
Hossannah Asuncion grew up near the 710 freeway in Los Angeles and currently lives near an A/C stop in Brooklyn. Her work has been published by The Poetry Society of America,Tuesday; An Art Project, The Collagist, Anti- and other fine places.
Evan Robert Chen is a doctoral student in creative writing at SUNY Albany, where he has taught courses in poetry and film. You can listen to his poems and drones at marrymepoems.tumblr.com.
Cynthia Arrieu-King works as an associate professor of creative writing at the Richard Stockton College of New Jersey. She is the author of two collections of poetry, People are Tiny in Paintings of China (Octopus Books, 2010) and Manifest (Switchback Books, 2013).
Sally Wen Mao is the author of a forthcoming book of poems, Mad Honey Symposium (Alice James Books, 2014), the winner of the 2012 Kinereth Gensler Award. Her work has been anthologized in The Best American Poetry 2013 and is published or forthcoming in Guernica, Gulf Coast, and Indiana Review.
Cathy Linh Che is the author of Split (Alice James, 2014), the winner of the 2012 Kundiman Poetry Prize. She has also received fellowships from Poets & Writers, Poets House, and LMCC's Workspace Residency.
For more information, visit http://pageturnerfest.org/
Oct. 5 Cynthia Arrieu-King, Michelle Chan Brown, Cathy Linh Che, Evan Chen, Vanessa Huang, Jee Leong Koh, Sally Wen Mao, Alison Roh Park, Purvi Shah, R.A. Villanueva read at AAWW's Page Turner
October 5
Kundiman Marathon Poetry Reading at AAWW's PageTurnerFest
11 am - 12 pm
Roulette Ballroom
509 Atlantic Ave
Brooklyn, NY 11217
This special marathon reading presents some of the best emerging Asian American poets.
Featuring Michelle Chan Brown (Double Agent), Cathy Linh Che (Split ), Evan Chen, Vanessa Huang, Cynthia Arrieu-King (Manifest), Jee Leong Koh (Seven Studies for a Self Portrait), Sally Wen Mao (Mad Honey Symposium), Alison Roh Park (What We Push Against), Purvi Shah (Terrain Tracks), and R.A. Villanueva (Reliquaria)
For more information, visit http://pageturnerfest.org/
Cynthia Arrieu-King works as an associate professor of creative writing at the Richard Stockton College of New Jersey. She is the author of two collections of poetry, People are Tiny in Paintings of China (Octopus Books, 2010) and Manifest (Switchback Books, 2013).
Michelle Chan Brown’s Double Agent was the winner of the 2012 Kore First Book Award, judged by Bhanu Kapil. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Blackbird, The Missouri Review, and Witness. She lives with DC, where she teaches, writes, and edits Drunken Boat.
Cathy Linh Che is the author of Split (Alice James Books, 2014), the winner of the 2012 Kundiman Poetry Prize. She has also received fellowships from Poets & Writers, Poets House, and LMCC's Workspace Residency.
Evan Robert Chen is a doctoral student in creative writing at SUNY Albany, where he has taught courses in poetry and film. You can listen to his poems and drones at marrymepoems.tumblr.com.
Poet, Artist, and Cultural Organizer Vanessa Huang weaves poemsongs with moments of creative aliveness and transformative encounter, color, and texture in call and response with kindred spirits who dream and make worlds where each and all of us are free. She was a finalist for Poets & Writers’ 2010 California Writers Exchange Award.
Jee Leong Koh is the author of four books of poems, including Seven Studies for a Self Portrait (Bench Press). His most recent collection, The Pillow Book, will be translated into Japanese and published by Awai Books in 2014. Born in Singapore, he now lives in New York, and blogs at Song of a Reformed Headhunter.
Sally Wen Mao is the author of a forthcoming book of poems, Mad Honey Symposium (Alice James Books, 2014), the winner of the 2012 Kinereth Gensler Award. Her work has been anthologized in The Best American Poetry 2013 and is published or forthcoming in Guernica, Gulf Coast, and Indiana Review.
Alison Roh Park is a Kundiman fellow, Pushcart nominated poet, and winner of the 2011 Poetry Society of America New York Chapbook Fellowship, 2012 Poets and Writers Magazine Amy Award and 2010 Jerome Foundation Travel and Study Grant. She currently teaches Asian American Studies at Hunter College and writes for www.racefiles.com.
Purvi Shah won the inaugural SONY South Asian Excellence Award for Social Service for her work fighting violence against women. Her debut book,Terrain Tracks, garnered the Many Voices Project prize and was nominated for the Asian American Writers’ Workshop Members’ Choice Award. You can find more of her work at http://purvipoets.net, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/purvi-shah/, or @PurviPoets.
R.A. Villanueva is the author of Reliquaria, winner of the 2013 Prairie Schooner Book Prize. He is also the winner of the 2013 Ninth Letter Literary Award for poetry. A founding editor of Tongue: A Journal of Writing & Art, he lives in Brooklyn.
George Yamazawa, Paul Tran, and Cathy Linh Che to present at LAPPFest DC
Congrats, dear fellows!
Check the schedule here: http://lappfest.org/schedule/
Cathy Linh Che is the author of Split (Alice James, 2014), the winner of the 2012 Kundiman Poetry Prize. She received her MFA from New York University and is the recipient of fellowships from The Fine Arts Work Center at Provincetown, Hedgebrook, and Poets House.
Paul Tran is a rising senior at Brown University and a graduate of The Preuss School at the University of California, San Diego. He is a first-generation college student and aspires to pursue a Ph.D. in American Studies. Currently concentrating in History, Africana & Ethnic Studies, Paul’s work as a twentieth-century U.S. social & cultural historian-in-training, activist and spoken word poet attempts to illuminate the complex relationships between race, empire and the production of knowledge. With the past as his battleground, Paul is determined to excavate new understandings of human existence. His scholarship, poetry and leadership seeks to create communities compelled towards love and social justice. Inspired by the notion of America as “a land without ghosts,” Paul specifically aims to exhume this nation’s dead, to find what moves in the margins, and respectfully articulate their stories in the hopes of making meanings for our lives.
At 22 years old, George “G” Yamazawa is widely considered one of the top young spoken word artists in the country. A Kundiman fellow, National Poetry Slam Finalist, two-time Individual World Poetry Slam Finalist, and three-time Southern Fried Champion, G has performed at numerous venues and universities across the nation including the Sundance Film Festival, Bonnaroo Music Festival, as well as overseas in England, Germany, and the Netherlands.