On September 21, City Literature Books will host a reading featuring Joseph O. Legaspi, Helene Achanzar, Feliz Lucia Molina, & Faisal Mohyuddin. RSVP on Facebook here!

Joseph O. Legaspi is the author of the poetry collections Threshold and Imago, both from CavanKerry Press; and three chapbooks: Postcards (Ghost Bird Press), Aviary, Bestiary (Organic Weapon Arts), and Subways (Thrush Press). Recent works have appeared in POETRY, New England Review, World Literature Today, Best of the Net, and the Academy of American Poets’ Poem-a-Day. He cofounded Kundiman (www.kundiman.org), a national nonprofit organization dedicated to nurturing generations of writers and readers of Asian American literature.

Feliz Lucia Molina was born and raised in Los Angeles. She is the author of Undercastle (Magic Helicopter Press), co-author of The Wes Letters (Outpost19), chapbook Crystal Marys (Scary Topiary Press), and Roulette (forthcoming from Make Now Books). Her writing has appeared in Open Space, Fence, and PEN America, among others. She has recently read her work at Wendy’s Subway, Poetic Research Bureau, University of Chicago, and Guggenheim Museum. She is studying clinical social work at School for Social Work Administration at University of Chicago. She can be found at felizluciamolina.com

Faisal Mohyuddin is the author of The Displaced Children of Displaced Children (Eyewear, 2018), winner of the 2017 Sexton Prize for Poetry and a 2018 Summer Recommendation of the Poetry Book Society. Also the author of the chapbook, The Riddle of Longing (Backbone, 2017), he serves as an educator adviser to the global not-for-profit Narrative 4 and teaches English at Highland Park High School in suburban Chicago.

Helene Achanzar is a Kundiman fellow and a John and Renée Grisham fellow at the University of Mississippi, where she is a Senior Editor at the Yalobusha Review. Her poems appear or are forthcoming in jubilat and Oxford American.

On August 31st, we'll be convening with youth-serving Poetry Coalition members in Washington, D.C. before the National Book Festival. We will be discussing Youth Programming, discussing gaps and overlaps, different objectives, and poetry in the classroom.

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. More info on the Coalition here!

Kundiman fellows Amy Meng, Ansley Moon, and Jenny Xie will be joining 2018 Retreat faculty member Monica Youn in a poetry reading at the Bryant Park Reading Series. We hope you'll close out the summer with us at this powerhouse event! Find more info here.

Each year, Kundiman offers robust seasons internships with positions in Development, Programs, Grant Writing, and Communications. Interns are given hands-on experience with an organization that supports writing communities and to gain experience in the literary arts.

Learn more about each of the positions and apply here!

As part of a weekend that includes a workshop stint with Hugo House, Denver-based poet Diana Khoi Nguyen and Kundiman fellow reads at Elliot Bay Books, with a striking debut collection in hand, Ghost Of (Omnidawn). Selected by Terrance Hayes for a publication prize, this is a powerful look at a family riven by history, exile, and loss.

Also reading are poets Prageeta Sharma and Ryo Yamaguchi. Prageeta Sharma teaches in the creative writing program at the University of Montana, and is the acclaimed author of four collections of poetry; the most recent is Undergloom (Fence Books). Ryo Yamaguchi works at Seattle-based Wave Books, and is the author of The Refusal of Suitors (Noemi Press).

Facebook event page here.

"Nguyen’s voice is both wraithlike and astonishingly frontal; this is one of the most gifted first books I’ve read.” —–Terrance Hayes.