fellows

Matthew Olzmann's first book Mezzanines, winner of the 2011 Kundiman Poetry Prize, is available for pre-sale now

Pre-order Mezzanines at Powells or at Amazon!

"Olzmann’s skilled play, terrific ear, and immense heart make Mezzanines a must-read."

—Pat Rosal

There is no place Matthew Olzmann doesn’t visit in his poignant debut. From underwater to outer space, Mezzanines is a contained universe, constantly shifting through multiple perceptions of the surreal and the real. A lyrical conversation with mortality, Olzmann explores identity, faith, and our sense of place, with an acute awareness of our minute existence.

From "NASA Video Transmission Picked Up By Baby Monitor":

How many shadows are there left to name?
Logophobia is the fear of words. Keraunothnetophobia
is the fear of falling man-made satellites.
Imagine this last one:
you walk outside and look to heaven
expecting a sky lab plunging down on you—wires
everywhere, bolts loosening, metal body in flames.
Instead, you see only blue, endless blue,
the color of a baby’s new blanket, cloaking everything.

Matthew Olzmann is a graduate of the MFA program for writers at Warren Wilson College. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Kenyon Review, New England Review, Inch, Gulf Coast, Rattle, and elsewhere. He’s received fellowships from Kundiman and the Kresge Arts Foundation. Currently, he is a writer-in-residence for the InsideOut Literary Arts Project and the poetry editor of The Collagist.

 

Tamiko Beyer's first book We Come Elemental available for pre-order

 

Publication Date: May 14, 2013

Pre-order at Powells or Amazon 

"We Come Elemental introduces us to a poet of uncommon elegance and mystery. These poems act as a tour guide for the human heart, with sparse and fragrant writing. Haunting and full of humanity, these poems lash us to the world underwater and through the body politic with a sizzling ear and eye for what makes the body thrum."—Aimee Nezhukumatathil

Tamiko Beyer spent the first ten years of her life in Tokyo, Japan. She is the author of the chapbook bough breaks (Meritage Press). She received her M.F.A. from Washington University in St. Louis and was awarded a Chancellor’s Fellowship. Beyer is a former Kundiman Fellow, a recipient of a grant from the Astraea Lesbian Writers Fund, and a contributing editor to Drunken Boat. She works as the Advocacy Writer at Corporate Accountability International.

Saturday, 11/17/2012 on the Bloodjet Writing Hour, Rachelle Cruz in conversation with Iris Law

Join Rachelle as she talks with Iris Law, author of PERIODICITY, on Saturday, November 17th at 1:30 PST/ 4:30 pm EST.

 

Click here to listen live.


Iris A. Law is the editor of Lantern Review, a graduate of the M.F.A. program at the University of Notre Dame, and a Kundiman Fellow. Her first chapbook, Periodicity, is forthcoming from Finishing Line Press in February 2013, and is available for preorder on the publisher’s web site through December 22nd.

http://thebloodjet.wordpress.com/2012/11/15/episode-85-iris-law-author-of-periodicity-on-sat-november-17th-at-130-pm-pst-430-pm-est/

Kundiman alum Melissa Roxas is one of six phenomenal women honored for human rights and women’s activism!

The 10th biennial Phenomenal Woman Reception and Awards Fundraiser celebrated women who have made local and worldwide contributions to women’s equality Saturday.

The event, held in the USU Grand Salon, awarded six women including Nobel Peace Prize winner Jody Williams, human rights activists Melissa Roxas and Chancee Martorell, Lindsey Horvath, West Hollywood City Council Member, and performance artist María Elena Gaitán.

“These women have done a lot, so it’s really exciting to be here and see that the GWS department does such a big event,” said Vike, 24.

Another speaker, Roxas, spoke of her health care work in the Philippines in 2009, a trip during which she was abducted at gunpoint and tortured for six days by the Philippine military. She is one survivor of three women; the two others are still missing.

“Every time it feels nervous to speak in front of a crowd or share my story, I think about not only these two women, but many other women who cannot be here to speak about what they’ve been through,” said Roxas, who was holding back tears. “My voice may be quivering, but my spirit is strong.”

Read the complete story here: http://sundial.csun.edu/2012/11/phenomenal-women-honored-for-human-rights-and-womens-activism/

Eugenia Leigh and Sally Wen Mao Receive Best of the Net Nominations from Muzzle Magazine

Muzzle's Best of the Net Nominees


 
This year's nominees for the Sundress's annually published Best of the Net anthology are:

We were very happy that Marty McConnell's poem "the fidelity of epitaphs (20 days later)" was a finalist last year. Please join us in wishing our nominees luck!

http://www.muzzlemagazine.com/1/post/2012/11/our-best-of-the-net-nominees.html

Tarfia Faizullah has three beautiful poems in the new issue of Blackbird

   Aubade Ending with the Death of a Mosquito
   Elegy with Her Red-Tipped Fingers
   Ramadan Nocturne

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. She is the recipient of an AWP Intro Journals Award, a Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Prize, the 2012 Copper Nickel Poetry Contest, the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference Margaret Bridgman Scholarship in Poetry, a scholarship from the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, a Fulbright fellowship, and other honors. A Kundiman fellow, she is a graduate of the Virginia Commonwealth University program in creative writing. 

Congrats, dear Tarfia!

Congrats to Janine Joseph, Librettist!

On Sunday, you can see From My Mother's Mother, the latest effort from Houston Grand Opera's HGOco, a young Korean-American woman goes into the hospital to give birth and is confronted by not only her mother and grandmother but their traditions calling for her to eat seaweed soup. A lot of it. According to Korean custom, a new mother should eat the soup every day for 21 days after her baby is born. Trouble is, the main character in this 30-minute operetta (commissioned as part of HGOco's Song of Houston: East+West Initiative) doesn't like the taste of the soup.

 With a libretto by University of Houston PhD candidate Janine Joseph and music by composer Jeeyoung Kim, this is the fifth in a series of compositions attempting to show how immigrants in Houston come to terms with all aspects of their cultural lives. "It is a unique story about the passing down of culture to your own children," says Sandra Bernhard, HGOco's director. Joseph, who specializes in poetry and had never thought of writing an opera libretto before, says she called on her own immigrant experience -- she moved here from the Philippines when she was nine -- to try to understand all the factors going on in the relationship between these three women. "I grew up watching musicals and having an interest in opera, but it was not the kind of writing I was accustomed to doing," Joseph says. "It is rare that something like this comes your way. I knew enough about incorporating music into my own work to take on the task."

Mezzo-soprano Mika Shigematsu plays the mother (Om-Ma), and mezzo-soprano Hyo Na Kim appears as the grandmother (Hal-Mo-Ni). Soprano Hana Park performs as the daughter (Soo-Yun), while baritone -- and Houstonian -- Lee Gregory tackles the role of her husband (Jensen).

After its world premiere during the Korean Festival at 1 p.m. Saturday, November 3, at Discovery Green, From My Mother's Mother, which is sung in English, is also performed at 2 p.m. Sunday, November 4, at Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 1001 Bissonnet; 6 p.m. Wednesday, November 7, at the Houston Public Library, 500 McKinney; noon and 7 p.m. on Friday, November 9, at the University of Houston, 4800 Calhoun. For information, visit the HGOco website or call 713-546-0230.

What excitement! Kundiman fellow Iris A. Law's chapbook Periodicity now available for pre-order

Periodicity by Iris A. Law
Advance Praise for PERIODICITY:

“In PERIODICITY, Iris Law dedicates herself to the subject of women and the scientific pursuits that enthralled them and in most cases became their lifelong obsession and work. The poems’ personae include Marie Lavoisier; Ada (Byron's daughter); sisters Irène Joliot-Curie and Eve Curie Labouisse; Barbara McClintock; Maria Mitchell; Beatrix Potter; Faith Sai So Leong (the first Chinese American dentist); botanist Jane Colden, and nuclear physicist Chien-Shiung Wu. They were wives, partners, sisters, or daughters; and all of them in one way or another have often been cast by history in an auxiliary role, or as overshadowed by someone with greater fame. The lessons they learned from studying the natural world are much like lessons that are valuable to the poet: attention to the sensuous details of the widest array of material existence, to the urge to document, name, and create taxonomies; to tease order out of chaos and the ineffable. Working within both metaphorical and gendered frameworks, the women in these poems successfully refute the fixities inherent in any idea of classification. They proclaim, ‘We do not mirror one another. Rather, we resist replication, shaping our stories stubbornly against our chosen vectors . . .’ To the landscape of contemporary poetry, Iris Law brings a striking and intelligent sensibility, and a lovely, lucid voice; I look forward to reading more from this young poet in the near future.”
—Luisa A. Igloria

“Law makes scientific language delightfully rhythmic, and it’s a revelation to discover how a talented poet can turn the austere language of science into lyrical, though still disciplined, reveries. . . . Though just eighteen poems, this potent collection resonates with insight and flair.”
—Orlando Ricardo Menes 

“Exploring the atomic order of creation and its mysteries, Law’s technique ranges skillfully from open field composition to tercets with luminous lines. . . . the world of PERIODICITY transcends empirical nature to a realm of grace and the soul’”—Karen An-hwei Lee

_About the Author

Iris A. Law is a Kundiman Fellow and the editor of the online Asian American poetry journal and blog, LANTERN REVIEW. Born and raised in New Jersey, she received her M.F.A. in Creative Writing from the University of Notre Dame. She currently lives and works in Lexington, Kentucky. Visit her online at www.irisalaw.com.