Just think it's great how they are going out and singing live and doing their thing because part of what makes KDH so great is the music. Seeing how far they've come individually is amazing to see and speaks to keeping those sparks alive, no matter your dream.
And just because I can't resist...
Nature’s first green is gold, Her hardest hue to hold. Her early leaf’s a flower; But only so an hour. Then leaf subsides to leaf. So Eden sank to grief, So dawn goes down to day. Nothing gold can stay.
Original poem written and performed by Bao Phi.
Video by Joua Lee.
ARTIST STATEMENT: This poem and video was originally conceptualized at the height of Linsanity as one in a trilogy -- the first, "Lin. Sanity" by Giles Li and Ash Hsie, was posted last week. "467" alludes to the rank Jeremy Lin had in the NBA prior to Linsanity. When Jeremy Lin went down with an injury, the whole plan was put indefinitely on hold. The recent (and baffling) vitriol that sports media outlets have thrown Jeremy Lin's way escalated the timeline. Thank you to all involved in making this video, and keep an eye out for another video in the trilogy (July 27, 2012)
DISCLAIMER: This artistic work contains copyrighted material, the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. Such material is included for the purposes of criticism, commentary, and education; the artists do not profit from the online viewing of this work. This constitutes a 'fair use' of copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law.
This is a few weeks old, but thought I would post it on up. Here's the YouTube info:
AMERICAN WOODS: a poetry video, written and read by Ed Bok Lee; video by Mark Tang; music by Fres Thao; vocals by Kachyia Vang.
In 2004, eight white hunters in Wisconsin were shot by another hunter, Chai Vang, who is now serving six life sentences for murder. American Woods contextualizes this seemingly aberrant incident into an eye-opening allegory of America's broader troubled, on-going history—all rooted in the unanswered question: Who fired first?
I really don't have much to say except to reiterate what's already being said below: Come for the booze.
Friday, April 15, 2011, 9PM Our monthly open mic party is always a riot. April 15 will be no exception. New York City-born poet Bushra Rehman, who Ishle Yi Park has called “a little bundle of magic,” and performance artist and playwright Tom X. Chao, who, according to Richard Yates, is the "author of at least one unforgettable story," join Mouth to Mouth hosts Ed Lin and Jen Kwok. Come for laughs, booze, and more! @The Asian American Writers' Workshop 110-112 West 27th Street, 6th Floor Between 6th and 7th Avenues Buzzer 600 $5 suggested donation open to the public sign up at 8:30 PM for a 5 minute slot
Last year I posted up on Jason Koo, author of Man On Extremely Small Island who was the winner of the Denovo prize (Jason also teaches out at NYU, is the Poetry Editor of Low Rent, and also earned his paper - BA, MFA, and Ph.D - from Yale, Houston, and Missouri-Columbia) -- and I heard from Jason that his poetry just got featured up on SharkForum.
Award-winning poet Patrick Rosal will read from and discuss his works at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 20, in Shaw Conference Room in the Commons at Cornell College. The event is free and open to the public.
Rosal is the author of “Uprock Headspin Scramble and Dive” and “My American Kundiman,” both full-length poetry collections. He has been honored with the Allen Ginsberg Award, the James Hearst Poetry Prize, and the Arts and Letters Prize. “Uprock” was the Asian American Writers’ Workshop Members’ Choice Award winner upon its release.
A Fulbright grant winner, Rosal has served as visiting writer at Penn State Altoona, Centre College, and the University of Texas. He has taught workshops all around the country to college and high school students, and he has been published in a wide array of journals and anthologies, including Harvard Review, The Literary Review, and Columbia: A Journal of Literature and Art. Rosal’s visit is part of the Visiting Writer Series sponsored by Cornell’s English department.
For more information on Rosal, visit his Web site.
I caught this up at poeta y diwata by author Barbara Jane Reyes via Sarah Gambito of Kundiman and am just going to post it up on in full here as it seems like a great resource for Asian American poets and a worthwhile cause to help out.
Please Help: The 6th Annual Kundiman Asian American Poetry Retreat
As you (may) know, Kundiman is playing an important role in the literary world of the U.S. By initiating a summer retreat for Asian American poets five years ago, it has opened doors of opportunity that were previously closed to young poets of the Asian diaspora. Through intensive workshops with renowned poets and the enthusiastic support from staff and peers, the amount and excellence of their output is phenomenal.
Kundiman Fellows have published poems in The Virginia Quarterly Review, The Colorado Review, Pleiades, Black Warrior Review and Crab Orchard Review. They are attending MFA and doctoral programs at The Iowa Writers’ Workshop, New York University, Stanford University, The University of Houston, and The University of California, Berkeley. Three Kundiman fellows have gone on to publish full-length collections of poetry.
What you may not know is how important this program has been in the development of lives of the poets themselves. I’d like to share quotes from just two of the Fellows and I invite you to read the testimonies of others on our website www.kundiman.org. Also, please see Janine Oshiro’s essay on her experience at the Kundiman retreat here: http://www.oregonhum.org/i-spy.php
“Months after this year’s Kundiman retreat, I am still left wondering whether the most intensely beautiful experience, short of falling in love, was an accidental happenstance of a meeting of more than 20 poet-minds at various stages of our writing development; or the intricate design of the driven and artful, purposeful and generous, tactical and loving staff, guest faculty and board of Kundiman. The camaraderie, peer review, professional insight and instruction, mutual support, lack of sleep and utter kindness and friendship fired up the most remote synapses of my brain and my deepest heartstrings. But why qualify the impact of Kundiman? I did fall in love—with my fellow poets, their exquisite analyses of my work and each of their unique poetic voices. I’m both humbled and proud to be a small part of this growing family of writers who even today, are shaping the poetry of tomorrow.” –Debbie Yee
“As soon as I arrived, I was greeted so warmly as if I was among old friends! I felt at home among complete strangers. Here was a group of dynamic people who shared both my struggles—being a writer of color in America—and my passions: a deep devotion to the art of poetry. I’ve always heard, read, and spoken about the importance of community in any artistic endeavor. The poet’s road can be a lonely one; the drifting heart needs its anchors. But I never realized how empowering a community of artists could be until I spent four days at UVA with the Kundiman staff, teachers, and fellows. I found there what I failed to in any other poetry workshop I’ve taken: a deep respect and honor among poets; a desire to talk about race, identity, and history, in conjunction with one’s composition process; and a willingness to be brave.” –Brynn Saito
We are turning to you to ask for your help in insuring that the 6th Kundiman Summer Retreat can take place, to replace funds that we received in the past but that are not available this year because of budget cuts. The $4,000 we need will go toward direct costs of the retreat—faculty and staff travel and faculty honoraria. Again this year, Kundiman staff members will donate their time to coordinate and administer all the stages required to carry out the five day session. What we ask, we ask for the program itself and for the brave and gifted poets it serves.
Poet by poet, Kundiman is helping to change the face of American literature and what it means to document an important part of the American story. We need the certain light of poetry all the more in these uncertain times. With your help, we will continue to light the way for the next generation of Asian American writers.
Bryan Thao Worra - who's the first Laotian American to receive an NEA fellowship in Literature - is coming out with a new book of poetry called "Barrow":
It's official- my new book, BARROW, coming out from Sam's Dot Publishing in the next few weeks will feature the cover by Laotian American artist Vongduane Manivong.
Check more out down at BTW's blog and also learn more about Vongduane at her site.
I met Jason Koo the day before Election Day at Davidson College where he teaches. At the Chinese restaurant where we had lunch with Tony Abbot, we both decided on General Tso's chicken (well, it's spelled differently in various menus), so I knew we'd hit it off, which we did. I was there for the Appalachain Songbook performance with soprano Jacque Culpepper and pianist Phillip Bush, but I also agreed to visit Jason's poetry workshop. A great group, and Jason himself had the enviable teacher's persona of being both laid-back and incisive. I asked him to send me some work for my blog and our website, so here is his "official" bio. statement, but first a short piece from his email telling me his good news! [...]
Jason Koo’s first collection of poems, MAN ON EXTREMELY SMALL ISLAND , won the 2008 De Novo Poetry Prize and will be published in 2009 by C&R Press. The recipient of a Creative Writing Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, he has had his poems appear in numerous journals, including The Yale Review, North American Review, Verse, Bellingham Review, Cimarron Review, Green Mountains Review, and Gulf Coast. He serves as Poetry Editor of Low Rent and is a visiting assistant professor of English at Davidson College.
This is cool news - and one for my poetry readers out there:
Laotian American writer Bryan Thao Worra, 35, a resident of the Hawthorne neighborhood of North Minneapolis has received a Literature Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts for poetry for 2009. Literature Fellowships are "the Arts Endowment's most direct investment in American creativity, encouraging the production of new work and allowing writers the time and means to write."
The fellowships alternate annually between poetry and prose. For 2009, 42 poets will receive fellowships of $25,000 each. This year there were over 1,000 applications from across the US. He is the first Laotian American to receive an NEA fellowship in Literature, although the NEA has previously given National Heritage Fellowships to traditional Laotian weavers and musicians.
Thao Worra will use the fellowship funds to complete his next book and to travel across the US observing Laotian American refugee communities to study the effect of regional dialect on Laotian American expressive language and culture and how it affects their sense of democracy.
Congratulations to Worra for winning the fellowship.
If you're into Open Mic, Def Poetry and some lyrical madness - make sure to check on out East Meets Words featuring Beau Sia:
While another election has come and gone, one thing just keeps on going: the East Meets Words Open Mic, the longest continuously running Asian American Open Mic Series on the East Coast (and maybe in all this country). This month’s feature is Beau Sia...Come on down to the freshly painted East Meets West Bookstore at 934 Massachusetts Avenue in Cambridge. Bring $3, something to share, your kids, your grandma, and Barack Obama if you dare. And come early to sign up for the open mic.
Here's some info on an upcoming event called the "Celebration of New Asian American Poetry" from the MaARTe!
A Celebration of New Asian American Poetry
In recent years, there’s been a palpable increase in books published by Asian American poets. A flight of fancy? A movement? Has our time finally come? One thing is certain: Asian American poetry is thriving with a panoply of enigmatic individual voices. The participants will read from their respective collections published in 2007 and forthcoming in 2008. Authors include Kazim Ali, Rick Barot, Jennifer Chang, Lisa Chen , Oliver de la Paz, Jennifer Kwon Dobbs, Joseph O. Legaspi, Aimee Nezhukumatathil, and Jon Pineda.
Co-sponsored by: This event was funded in part by Poets & Writers, Inc. with public funds from The New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency. Supported by Kundiman and the Asian American Writers‘ Workshop.
If you're in the mood for some poetry, three Asian American poets all published in 2007 will be having a reading down at the Loft Literary center in Minneapolis. Poets include Bryan Thao Worra, Sun Yung Shin, and Lee Herrick:
Friday, January 25, 2008 7:00pm - 9:00pm The Loft Literary Center 1011 Washington Avenue S.Minneapolis, MN
Each author will be signing copies after the reading; all three authors' books were published in 2007, Herrick's This Many Miles from Desire (WordTech Editions), Thao Worra's On the Other Side of the Eye (Sam's Dot Publishing), and Shin's Skirt Full of Black (Coffee House Press). For more details, visit here.
The slantyapolis/seftre blog has served millions of views trying to help in its own way, to give voice to the Asian and Asian American community, as well as document it, over the last 18 years. Sometimes op-ed, sometimes straight news, sometimes off the beaten path--the continued impetus remains that there's power in sharing voices and in sharing your own voice and reflecting that back into the communities you belong to.
If you're looking for the 2008 In Review Posts, the link list has been moved out, but you can still get to them all by following this link which pulls them up by label (they'll be in reverse so go to the oldest post to read them in order).
2007 In Review Posts
If you're looking for the 2007 In Review Posts, the link list has been moved out, but you can still get to them all by following this link which pulls them up by label (they'll be in reverse so go to the oldest post to read them in order).
