About

The Poetry Coalition is a national alliance of organizations dedicated to working together to promote the value poets bring to our culture and the important contribution poetry makes in the lives of people of all ages and backgrounds. Each year, the Poetry Coalition sponsors a national project, and each member of the Coalition contributes to the project in their own way.

Kundiman has participated in the Poetry Coalition since 2017. Yearly coalition have focused on the themes of migration, the body, democracy, protest, environmental justice. For more information about each project click below.

2023 PROJECT: Poetry & grief

For 2023, the theme was, “and so much lost you’d think / beauty had left a lesson: Poetry & Grief,” inspired by Ed Roberson’s poem “once the magnolia has blossomed.” The Poetry Coalition invited us to consider how poetry can inspire conversations about grief.

For our seventh year, we continued our Postcard Project tradition of sending postcard poems everyday throughout the month of March. Click here for our postcard gallery, readings, and prompts.

Kundiman also hosted a 1-day poetry workshop "Writing Grief: Somatic Rituals for Revision” with Rona Luo.


2022 PROJECT: Poetry & Disability Justice

In 2022, the theme was “The future lives in our bodies: Poetry & Disability Justice,” from Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha’s poem, “Femme Futures.” Poetry Coalition members intended to uplift how poets can provoke questions around disability justice and imagining new futures. 

For the sixth year, we continued our Postcard Project tradition. Kundiman also hosted a Poetics of Disability Justice workshop with Em Dial and Laurel Chen, where attendees were presented with a thoughtful space meant to center disabled experiences. Click here for our postcard gallery, readings, and prompts.


2021 PROJECT: POETRY & ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE

In 2021, the theme was, “It is burning./ It is dreaming./ It is waking up.: Poetry & Environmental Justice” from the poem “Map” by Linda Hogan. Poetry Coalition members came together to share how poetry can provoke questions about environmental justice and to encourage engagement with this crucial topic. Each week, we sent out prompts and suggested reading on the theme of environmental justice. Click here for our postcard gallery and here for our weekly prompts and suggested readings.


2020 PROJECT: POETRY & PROTEST

In 2020, Kundiman partnered with more than 25 other literary organizations in the national alliance, Poetry Coalition. This year’s project focused on the theme “I am deliberate / and afraid / of nothing: Poetry & Protest” — a line from Audre Lorde’s poem, “New Year’s Day.” Click here for our postcard gallery.


2019 Project: What Is It Then, Between Us?

In 2019, we invited four artists to craft an action calendar exploring topics of Asian American Immigration, Documentation, Activism, and Solidarity. We also invited fellows to write and share poetry postcards. Click here for the action calendar, and here for postcard gallery.


2018 Project: my dreaming, my loving

For the 2018 project, Kundiman joined forces with the Coalition to meditate on the theme of "Where My Dreaming and Loving Live: Poetry & the Body." Click here for our postcard gallery.


2017 Project: we come from everything

For the inaugural project, each organization in the Poetry Coalition took up the task of presenting programs and projects on the theme of migration. Click here for more poetry, video, and information.