Nov. 21 Natalie Diaz, April Naoko Heck, and Ocean Vuong read at the Asian American Writers' Workshop. Moderated by R.A. Villanueva

Event Details

Asian American Writers' Workshop
112 W 27th St
New York, NY
7pm

Facebook event here: https://www.facebook.com/events/552519674824154/

It's Decorative Gourd Season around here, as McSweeney’s famously declared — a time to look back at all the hard work that’s gone into producing the fruits we now collect and devour in gluttonous revelry.

To mark the season, we’re inviting poets, writers, and readers alike to join us in celebrating the fruits of three poets’ labors. April Naoko Heck, Natalie Diaz, and Ocean Vuong will share their work and talk with R.A. Villanueva about their obsessions and preoccupations as the days get shorter. 

In A Nuclear Family, her first collection of poems, April Naoko Heck contemplates a lineage passing through the atomic bombing of Hiroshima to the world of nuclear power outside of Cleveland. Born in Tokyo, she relocated with her family to the U.S. when she was seven. A Kundiman Fellow, she has been awarded residencies from the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts and Vermont Studio Center. She works for the NYU Creative Writing Program and lives in Brooklyn. 

Natalie Diaz delves into life on a reservation in the American Southwest in When My Brother Was an Aztec, where family collides with conquest and empire. She is a member of the Mojave and Pima Indian tribes and attended Old Dominion University on a full athletic scholarship. After playing professional basketball in Austria, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, and Turkey she returned to ODU for an MFA in writing. Her work was selected by Natasha Trethewey for Best New Poets, and she has received the Nimrod/Hardman Pablo Neruda Prize for Poetry. She lives in Surprise, Arizona.

Ocean Vuong’s work examines love, longing, and family memory against the backdrop of the Vietnam War. Born in 1988 in Saigon, he was raised by women (a single mother, aunts, and a grandmother) in Hartford, Connecticut, and received his BA in English literature from Brooklyn College. He is the author of two chapbooks: No and Burnings, which was an American Library Association’s Over The Rainbow selection. A recipient of a 2013 Pushcart Prize, other honors include fellowships from Kundiman, Poets House, and the Saltonstall Foundation For the Arts, as well as an Academy of American Poets Prize and the Connecticut Poetry Society’s Al Savard Award. He lives in New York, where he reads chapbook submissions as the associate editor of Thrush Press. 

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 semi-finalist for the 2013 "Discovery"/Boston Review Prize and a finalist for the 2011 Beatrice Hawley and Kinereth Gensler Awards, additional honors include fellowships from Kundiman and The Asian American Literary Review, and scholarships from the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation. 

Seats are limited! Reserve yours here: http://www.eventbrite.com/e/decorative-gourd-season-a-poetry-reading-tickets-9290410869?aff=eorg

 

Ocean Vuong wins the 2013 Beloit Poetry Journal Chad Walsh Poetry Prize

Congrats, dear Ocean!

Please click here to learn more about the Chad Walsh Poetry Prize: http://www.bpj.org/bpj_about_walsh.html

Ocean Vuong is the 2013 winner of the Beloit Poetry Journal’s 21st annual Chad Walsh Poetry Prize. The editors of the BPJ select on the basis of its excellence a poem or group of poems they have published in the calendar year to receive the award. This year’s choice is Vuong ’s poem “Telemachus,” which appeared in the Fall 2013 issue.

Although he completed his undergraduate studies at Brooklyn College just a year ago, Vuong is already widely recognized as an important new voice in American poetry. Among other honors, he has been the recipient of a Pushcart Prize, The American Poetry Review's Stanley Kunitz Memorial Prize, the Academy of American Poets Prize, the Poets House Emerging Writers Fellowship, a Kundiman Fellowship, the Asian American Literary Review's A Lettre Poetry Fellowship, and a Saltonstall Poetry Fellowship. He has published two chapbooks, No (YesYes Books, 2013) and Burnings (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2010), an American Library Association's Over the Rainbow selection. He is Associate Editor of Thrush Press.

Vuong's contemporary rendering of the story of Odysseus's arrival home after the Trojan war and ten years of misadventures is a wise and moving parable about fathers and sons, particularly those caught up in the destruction and displacement of war. Odysseus washes up on shore of a bombed-out Ithaca that "is no longer / where he left it." Wanting both to know and to confront his father--"Do you know who I am, ba?"--Telemachus discovers "the bullet hole in his back, brimming / with sea water." In the poem's final gesture, a kiss transmits both the father's curse and his blessing. Telemachus turns Odysseus's body over to face
                   The cathedral in his sea-black eyes.
            The face not mine but one I will wear

            to kiss all my lovers goodnight:
            the way I seal my father’s lips

            with my own and begin
            the faithful work of drowning.       

The Walsh Prize, which this year carries a cash award of $4000, was established in 1993 by Alison Walsh Sackett and her husband Paul in honor of Ms. Sackett’s father, the poet Chad Walsh (1914-1991), a co-founder in 1950 of the Beloit Poetry Journal. An author and scholar, Walsh published six volumes of poetry, including The End of Nature and Hang Me Up My Begging Bowl; several books on literary history, notably on C.S. Lewis; and edited textbooks and anthologies as well. He was professor and writer-in-residence at Beloit College, in Wisconsin, for thirty-two years, serving for many of those as chair of the English Department. He also taught as a Fulbright lecturer in Finland and Italy. This year's award is also supported by donations from thirteen previous Walsh Prize winners.

W. Todd Kaneko's "The Dead Wrestler Elegies" is to be published in the Fall of 2014 by Curbside Splendor Press

We are thrilled to announce that W. Todd Kaneko's poetry manuscript THE DEAD WRESTLER ELEGIES is soon to be his first full-length book. To be published by Curbside Splendor in the Fall of 2014.

For more about Curbside Splendor, visit: http://www.curbsidesplendor.com/ 

W. Todd Kaneko is from Seattle, Washington. His poetry, fiction and non-fiction can be seen in Bellingham Review, Los Angeles  Review, Southeast Review, Lantern Review, NANO Fiction, The Collagist, Blackbird, The Huffington Post, Song of the Owashtanong: Grand Rapids Poetry in the 21st Century, Bring the Noise: The Best Pop Culture Essays from Barrelhouse Magazine and elsewhere.  He took his MFA in Creative Writing from Arizona State University and has received fellowships from the Kenyon Review Writers Workshop and Kundiman. He is an associate editor for DMQ Review. Currently, he teaches in the Department of Writing at Grand Valley State University. He lives in Grand Rapids, Michigan with the writer Caitlin Horrocks.

Nov. 9 Muriel Leung and Tiana Nobile read in New Orleans

November 9

Kundiman Reading in New Orleans

Kajun's Pub 
2256 St. Claude Ave. 
New Orleans, LA 70117

7pm

TENDE RLOIN's choicest reading series, featuring TIANA NOBILE, MURIEL LEUNG AND LAURA THEOBALD!

About the series:
Cold Cuts is a poetry reading interested in performance and a performance interested in reading poetry. Each reading will consist of 3 - often on the theme of 2 poets and a 3rd weird thing: the performative. But we encourage all our poets to perform and all our performances to poet. We like to showcase our TENDER LOIN writers, and we like to showcase local artists. We also like your butt.

As always, stay for karaoke...

Facebook event page here: https://www.facebook.com/events/1432671103619244/ 

 

Tarfia Faizullah introduced by Natasha Trethewey in Poet Lore

Congrats, dear Tarfia! 

"This issue opens with an introduction by U.S. Poet Laureate Natasha Trethewey (whose early work appeared in Poet Lore - Vol. 91, No. 2) to Tarfia Faizullah’s poems on identity, desire, and personal agency."

Read more here: https://www.writer.org/sslpage.aspx?pid=1165, and pick up a copy today!

Melissa Roxas makes CURA magazine's Artist-Activists that are Changing the World

We are so proud of Melissa and her groundbreaking work.  Check out CURA's post.

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/ 

Sept. 28 Tamiko Beyer, Margaret Rhee, Truong Tran, Ocean Vuong, & Debbie Yee at Eastwind Books

Kundiman Poetry reading in the Bay to celebrate NYC poets Ocean and Tamiko and their publications! with Debbie, Margaret, and Truong!!

Facebook event here: https://www.facebook.com/events/219838354842419/ 

Hosted by the Handsomest: Dan Lau

Come celebrate with us the new publications of
Tamiko's WE COME ELEMENTAL
(ALICE JAMES BOOKS, 2013)
& Ocean's NO (YES YES BOOKS, 2013)

at EASTWIND BOOKS of BERKELEY
2066 University Ave
Berkeley, CA 94704

Saturday, September 28 at 4:30pm

REMEMBER: KUNDIMAN IS LOVE.

Bios Below

OCEAN VUONG!

Born in Saigon, Vietnam, 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 2014 Pushcart Prize, other honors include fellowships from Kundiman, Poets House, and 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 American Poetry Review, Crab Orchard Review, Quarterly West, Denver Quarterly, Guernica, Poetry Northwest, and The Normal School, amongst others. He lives in Queens, NY. (www.oceanvuong.tumblr.com)

DEBBIE YEE!

Debbie Yee's poems have appeared variously, including The Best American Poetry 2009, Bateau and Fence. A Kundiman fellow and San Francisco Arts Commission grant recipient in literary arts, Debbie lives in San Francisco where she is in-house counsel for a national bank and periodically teaches writing and Gocco printmaking. She has lately returned to blogging about crafts, cooking, motherhood, and sometimes poetry at linocat.com.

MARGARET RHEE!

Loves green tea ice cream, vegan foods, thinking about activism, dreams, and new media. Recent poems published and forthcoming at Berkeley Poetry Review, Hyphen Magazine, and Comma, Poetry. Her chapbook Yellow was published in 2011 by Tinfish Press. She is a Kundiman Fellow.

TRUONG TRAN!

Truong Tran is a Vietnamese-American poet, visual artist, and teacher. His collection dust and consciousness (2002) won the San Francisco Poetry
Center Book Prize is the author of several collections of poetry. In 2003, he served as  Writer in Residence for Intersection for the Arts. Tran currently lives in San Francisco,where he teaches creative writing at San Francisco State University, and is Writer in Residence at theSan Francisco School of the Arts.

DAN LAU!

Dan Lau is a recipient of a Kundiman Fellowship, a William Dickey Fellowship, an Archie D. and Bertha Walker Scholarship from the FAWC in Provincetown,and an Individual Arts Commission grant from the San Francisco Arts Commission. His poem have appeared in Generations, Cape Cod Review, CRATE, Gesture, RHINO, The Collagist.

TAMIKO BEYER!

Tamiko Beyer is the author of We Come Elemental (Alice James Books), winner of the 2011 Kinereth Gensler Award, and bough breaks  (Meritage Press). Her poems have recently appeared or are forthcoming in The Volta, Octopus, Quarterly West, and elsewhere.  She has received grants and fellowships from Kundiman, Astraea Lesbian Writers Fund, Hedgebrook, and Washington University in St. Louis where received her M.F.A..  Currently, she is the Senior Writer at Corporate Accountability International and lives in Cambridge, MA. Find her online at tamikobeyer.com.

 

Michelle Chan Brown, April Naoko Heck, Mia Ayumi Malhotra, Chris Santiago, & R.A. Villanueva published in Kartika Review

Congrats, dear fellows and alums!

We’re excited to announce the release of our latest publication, Issue 16, Fall 2013.

In This Issue: Michelle Chan Brown, Kali Fajardo-Anstine, April Naoko Heck, Susan Ito, Mia Ayumi Malhotra, Minh Pham, Danny Robles, Chris Santiago, R. A. Santos, Shubha Venugopal, R.A. Villanueva, Frances Kai-Hwa Wang.

Interviews with Li-Young Lee, acclaimed poet and author of four books of poetry and a memoir, including Behind My Eyes (W.W. Norton, 2008) and Shin Yu Pai, author of eight books of poetry, including Aux Arcs (La Alameda Press, 2013).

APIA Commentary by David Mura: The Student of Color in the Typical MFA Program.

Go here to check out their work! http://kartikareview.com/?p=558

Congrats to Roberto Ascalon, winner of the 2013 Rattle Poetry Prize!

Congrats, dear Roberto! 

Check out the announcement here: 
http://www.rattle.com/poetry/2013/09/2013-rattle-poetry-prize-winners/

“The Fire This Time”
by
Roberto Ascalon
Seattle, WA

__________

Finalists:

“A Poem for Women Who Don’t Want Children”
Chanel Brenner
Santa Monica, CA

“My Mother Told Us Not to Have Children”
Rebecca Gayle Howell
Lubbock, TX

“Baby Love”
Courtney Kampa
New York, NY

“What He Must Have Seen”
Stephen Kampa
Daytona Beach, FL

“Man on Mad Anthony”
Bea Opengart
Cincinatti, OH

“Laundry List”
Michelle Ornat
Elma, NY

“Man on the Floor”
Jack Powers
Fairfield, CT

“Basic Standards Test”
Danez Smith
St. Paul, MN

“Who Breathed in Binders”
Patricia Smith
Howell, NJ

“Of You”
Wendy Videlock
Grand Junction, CO

These eleven poems will be published in the Winter issue of Rattle this December. Each of the Finalists are also eligible for the $1,000 Readers’ Choice Award, to be selected by entrant and subscriber vote (the voting period is December 1, 2013 – February 15, 2014).

Another nine poems were selected for standard publication, and offered a space in the open section of a future issue. These poets will be notified individually about details, but they are: Jacqueline Berger, Daniel Bohnhorst, Jackleen Holton, Sharon Kessler-Farchi, Michael Meyerhofer, Kathleen Nolan, Charlotte Pence, Sam Sax, and Timothy Schirmer.

Thank you to everyone who participated in the competition, which would not have been a success without your diverse and inspiring poems. We received a record 2,105 entries and well over 8,000 poems, and it was an honor to read each of them.