fellows

Henry W. Leung is interviewed in the Michigan Quarterly Review

"You’re not writing poetry if you’re not being honest (which isn’t the same as being confessional)."

Congrats, dear Henry!

Henry W. Leung was born in a village in Guangdong, China. He spent his childhood in Honolulu before moving to the San Francisco Bay Area. He is currently completing his MFA in Fiction at the University of Michigan. Paradise Hunger – the winner of the 2012 Swan Scythe Press Poetry Chapbook Contest – is his first chapbook. He writes a bimonthly column on Asian American poetry for the Lantern Review.

To read more of the interview, visit: http://www.michiganquarterlyreview.com/2013/01/paradise-hunger-interview-with-henry-w-leung/

Read Purvi Shah's powerful article "The Value of Vigil(ance) in Ending Sexual Violence" up at Huffington Post

The Value of Vigil(ance) in Ending Sexual Violence

 

What do we here in the U.S. take away from the brutal gang-rape and death of Jyoti Singh Pandey? 

Across our world, miles away from the original site of violence in Delhi, India, a wave of protests and vigils have honored Jyoti and demanded an end to sexual violence. Leading the wave, thousands of protesters in Delhi have faced tear gas, water cannons and otherpolice force in order to say India needs stronger laws against sexual assault while fostering a society that does not condone gender violence -- so that it is no longer themost dangerous place to be born a girl child.

In the United States too, with our own sobering rate of sexual assaults faced by one in six women and one in 33 men, a number of vigils for Jyoti have marked local calls for community response to sexual violence.

At a recent vigil last Tuesday evening, where I contributed a poem, hundreds of community members gathered in Union Square, New York City to honor Jyoti and offer support to stop sexual violence around the world and here at home.

Then again, in an article speaking to the spread of U.S. vigils honoring Jyoti, commenter Douting Mind, asserts, "What a waste of time." Indeed, you can't bring a body back, erase suffering, wish away experience. Laws are slow to change. Society, sometimes even slower.

Thank you, Purvi, for writing this beautiful and necessary piece. 

Read the rest of her post here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/purvi-shah/sexual-violence_b_2528787.html

Monica Ong is featured in a First Person Plural Interview

Monica Ong was trained as a visual artist but poetry has long been a part of her creative process.  She joins FPP on January 28 to share her work, and we asked her a few questions about her influences, the act of translation, and cultural silence.

Which artists do you feel closest to and which have had the greatest impact on your work?  I am deeply affected by many artists and writers. Shirin Neshat – the intersection of text, image, feminism, and cultural revolution in her work is so courageous. I love the audio walks by Janet Cardiff. Favorite artist-poets include Anne Carson and Susan Howe. As far as growing in my work, I owe a huge debt of gratitude to the poets of Kundiman and Cave Canem, organizations that foster Asian-American and African-American Poetry respectively – the poets I’ve met are not only examples of great writers, but generous spirits who don’t hesitate to nourish and mentor others. It continues to astound and inspire me to this day. That’s my shout out to Sarah Gambito and Randall Horton, as well as many others who know who they are.

Read more from the interview here: http://www.firstpersonpluralharlem.com/2013/01/18/the-fpp-interview-monica-ong/

Congrats, dear Monica!

Listen to Neil Aitken read his poem "Babbage Departing Turin by Coach, 1840"--published in RHINO Poetry!

Congratulations to our dear Neil!

Neil Aitken is the author of The Lost Country of Sight, winner of the 2007 Philip Levine Prize for Poetry, and founding editor of Boxcar Poetry Review. He is also an experienced translator of Chinese poetry with over 150 translations in the last two years. With Ming Di, he co-translated The Book of Cranes (Tupelo 2013) by Zang Di and The Book of Time (Tupelo 2013), an anthology of contemporary Chinese poets. He also served as lead translator for Ming Di’sThe River Merchant’s Wife (Marick 2012). His poems have appeared in Barn Owl Review, Crab Orchard Review, The Drunken Boat, Ninth Letter, Poetry Southeast, Sou’wester, The Southern Review, and many other fine journals. He holds an M.F.A. in Creative Writing (poetry & fiction) from UC Riverside and is completing a Ph.D. in Literature & Creative Writing at the University of Southern California. An experienced instructor, he has taught creative writing workshop classes at UC Riverside and led community poetry workshops for Beyond Baroque, Mixed Roots Film & Literary Festival, and EngAGE Senior Artists Communities. He has also provided support and coaching for new literary journals and first book poets.

Click here to listen to his poetry! http://rhinopoetry.org/2013/01/05/babbage-departing-turin-by-coach-1840-neil-aitken/

Rachelle Cruz has three poems, up at Backbone Poetry Journal

Congrats, dear Rachelle!

Rachelle Cruz is from Hayward, California. She is the author of the chapbook, Self-Portrait as Rumor and Blood (Dancing Girl Press, 2012). Her work is forthcoming or has appeared in Bone Bouquet, PANK Magazine, Muzzle Magazine, Splinter Generation, KCET's Departures Series, Inlandia: A Literary Journey, among others. She hosts The Blood-Jet Writing Hour on Blog Talk Radio. She is an Emerging Voices Fellow, a Kundiman Fellow and a VONA writer living and writing in Southern California. 

Read her poems here: http://www.backbonepress.org/issueDec2012Rachel%20Cruz.html