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“As Kundiman seeks funding to develop and grow, I affirm it is an organization that deserves your support. As applications to the retreat have increased by two-fold each year, it is clear that Kundiman fills a crucial gap in services to the Asian American community and that the excellence of its programming is reaching the diverse and ever-growing Asian American population.”

– Arthur Sze

 

While the creation of new poetry and the nurturing of community seem to be of primary importance to Kundiman and its fellows, I want to take special care in drawing much-deserved attention to the thought and imagination that lies behind the retreat’s pedagogy. As both an educator and a writer, I have been enriched by the diversity of teaching approaches these past three years—these manifold ways of honoring the transformative power of language. Regardless of the faculty or staff’s seemingly disparate “aesthetics” or “poetics,” each individual embodied a genuine faith in our poems and drafts, reaching out to us with an intensity of spirit and intellect: they offered us rule-bound exercises, pushing us to exercise freedom within constraints; they rooted critique in practical, but nonetheless provocative questions of craft and conceptual intent; they sought to initiate us into a writing life, urging us to embrace these rituals of reading and experimentation well beyond our workshops. 

– R.A. Villanueva

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Why Give?

Build our community's voice: Support the next generation of Asian American poets

Kundiman is deeply commited to the craft of poetry and to realizing the role of Asian American poets in giving voice to the Asian American experience and transforming the larger American literary and cultural landscape.

With our innovative Retreat, Kavad community public arts project, Reading Series, and Book Prize, Kundiman offers a comprehensive spectrum of arts programming focused on the needs of Asian American poets and our communities. Together we are re-mapping the American literary landscape, building community, and making history.

Kundiman is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization: contributions made to Kundiman are tax-deductible to the fullest extent of the law.

Kundiman's Impact & Importance

In our nine years of existense, Kundiman has mentored 80+ Asian American poets with 7 publishing first books and 4 chapbooks since 2006. We have fostered community recognition at public events such as the Manhattan Borough Presidents Office Asian Pacific American Month celebration. We have enabled Asian American voices to become a key force in the literary landscape by presenting routinely at the annual Associated Writing Programs conference. And this year, with our first Kavad project remembering 9/11, we will help make history.

Due to the impact of Kundiman’s work with individual poets as well as the larger American poetic community, Kundiman co-founder Sarah Gambito earned the 2009 Barnes & Noble Writers for Writers Award established by Poets & Writers to recognize authors who have given generously to other writers or to the broader literary community.

You make stories of success possible.

Donate Now to support us in helping Asian American poets find their voices. Partner with us in creating community that envisions an empowered cultural legacy for Asian Americans.

With your donation, Kundiman promises to deliver intensive programs, mentorship, and public projects that Asian American poets and our communities need in order to be recognized and to flourish.

 

Ways to Contribute

  • General Operating and Programs Support. This crucial support allows for Kundiman's programs. From the people that make the programs possible to funds for publications, general support ensures Kundiman can execute its programs with power and greatest impact.
  • Fellow Grant Support
    • A contribution of $750 pays the full cost of room, board, and travel for a fellow at Kundiman's annual retreat.
    • A $350 contribution underwrites the cost of tuition for one Kundiman retreat residency.
  • Tribute Gifts. Honor a beloved family member, friend, or colleague by establishing a donation in their name: make poetry and community a part of their legacy.
  • Corporate Donations and Sponsorship. Matching gift programs at corporations enable the ability for you to double (or triple!) your contribution.

Support Art that Transforms with Action

  • Janine Oshiro discusses her retreat experience in an article for Oregon Humanities here.
  • "Kundiman is a gift...At Kundiman, I found the home I didn't even know I wanted and had been searching for. I found a gathering of beautiful souls full of strangeness and passion—for poetry and language and craft, yes, but more than that, these people were dedicated to the transformative force of art coupled with action...The community at Kundiman challenged me to take responsibility. They made me want it. They showed me how much I still have to learn and how much is possible, within my reach if I so desire and choose. I left the retreat wanting to dream wider and deeper, wanting to be brave. Just wanting more. I'm not good at being fearless. But I now have the family I never knew I needed, inspiring me to try. I treasure this family, the experiences I've had with them, and the ones to come. And for all of these gifts, I will always be grateful." --Yael Villafranca