Congrats to Janine Joseph, Librettist!

On Sunday, you can see From My Mother's Mother, the latest effort from Houston Grand Opera's HGOco, a young Korean-American woman goes into the hospital to give birth and is confronted by not only her mother and grandmother but their traditions calling for her to eat seaweed soup. A lot of it. According to Korean custom, a new mother should eat the soup every day for 21 days after her baby is born. Trouble is, the main character in this 30-minute operetta (commissioned as part of HGOco's Song of Houston: East+West Initiative) doesn't like the taste of the soup.

 With a libretto by University of Houston PhD candidate Janine Joseph and music by composer Jeeyoung Kim, this is the fifth in a series of compositions attempting to show how immigrants in Houston come to terms with all aspects of their cultural lives. "It is a unique story about the passing down of culture to your own children," says Sandra Bernhard, HGOco's director. Joseph, who specializes in poetry and had never thought of writing an opera libretto before, says she called on her own immigrant experience -- she moved here from the Philippines when she was nine -- to try to understand all the factors going on in the relationship between these three women. "I grew up watching musicals and having an interest in opera, but it was not the kind of writing I was accustomed to doing," Joseph says. "It is rare that something like this comes your way. I knew enough about incorporating music into my own work to take on the task."

Mezzo-soprano Mika Shigematsu plays the mother (Om-Ma), and mezzo-soprano Hyo Na Kim appears as the grandmother (Hal-Mo-Ni). Soprano Hana Park performs as the daughter (Soo-Yun), while baritone -- and Houstonian -- Lee Gregory tackles the role of her husband (Jensen).

After its world premiere during the Korean Festival at 1 p.m. Saturday, November 3, at Discovery Green, From My Mother's Mother, which is sung in English, is also performed at 2 p.m. Sunday, November 4, at Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 1001 Bissonnet; 6 p.m. Wednesday, November 7, at the Houston Public Library, 500 McKinney; noon and 7 p.m. on Friday, November 9, at the University of Houston, 4800 Calhoun. For information, visit the HGOco website or call 713-546-0230.

Sarah Gambito Will Present at the VIDA Cocktail Party and Meet-N-Greet, Friday, November 9, 2012

VIDA Cocktail Party & Meet-N-Greet

Date: Friday, November 9, 2012

Time: 5:00 PM - 7:00 PM

Location: NYU's Lillian Vernon Creative Writers House

Description::

VIDA welcomes an array of female writers who, respectively, serve as faculty to local MFA programs and administrate non-profit organizations supporting underrepresented writers. Emerging writers interested in joining in critical discourse that addresses the lack of gender parity in publishing are encouraged to join this conversation. What obstacles do female writers presently face? What opportunities are ours to embrace?

VIDA Members & Guests to be present:

·      Cate Marvin (Co-Founder, VIDA)

·      Amy King (The Count, VIDA)

·      Rosebud Ben-Oni (HER KIND, VIDA)

·      Becca Klaver (Events, VIDA)

·      Rebecca Godfrey (Columbia)­

·      Lucie Brock-Broido (Columbia)

·      Deborah Landau (NYU)

·      Helen Schulman (New School)

·      Melissa Febos (Sarah Lawrence)

·      Elizabeth Hornig (Brooklyn)

·      Camille Rankine (Mahattanville)

·      Jan Heller-Levi (Hunter)

·      Sarah Gambito (Kundiman)

·      Alison Meyers and Hafizah Geter (Cave Canem) 

Brief presentations from VIDA’s guests along with a Q & A will be followed by informal conversation and merriment among those who actively desire to create a literary climate more inclusive of work by female writers.

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Join us Nov. 11 for our Reading Series at Verlaine with Cathy Park Hong, Muriel Leung, and Natalie J. Park

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reading1-verlaine.jpg

Kundiman & Verlaine present
a night of poetry & libation with  

Cathy Park Hong, Muriel Leung,
& Natalie Jiwon Park

Sunday, Nov. 11, 2012
Reading begins at 5 pm
Open Bar, 4 - 5 pm
$5 suggested donation

http://www.kundiman.org/reading-series/

Verlaine
110 Rivington Street
b/w Ludlow & Essex Sts.
[ directions: F to Delancey or V to 2nd Ave. ]

http://verlainenyc.com/

This program is made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature and is also supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in Partnership with the City Council, the Manhattan Borough President's Office, and the National Endowment for the Arts.

RSVP here: http://www.facebook.com/events/449681851734033/?fref=ts


Readers' Bios:

Cathy Park Hong's first book, Translating Mo'um was published in 2002 by Hanging Loose Press. Her second collection, Dance Dance Revolution, was chosen for the Barnard Women Poets Prize and was published in 2007 by WW Norton. Her third book of poems, Engine Empire, was published in May 2012 by WW Norton. Hong is also the recipient of a Fulbright Fellowship, a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, the New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship and a Village Voice Fellowship for Minority Reporters. Her poems have been published in A Public Space, Poetry, Paris Review, Conjunctions,McSweeney's, Harvard Review, Boston Review, The Nation, American Letters & Commentary, Denver Quarterly, and other journals. She is an Assistant Professor at Sarah Lawrence College and is regular faculty at the Queens MFA program in Charlotte, North Carolina. 

Muriel Leung is a poet from and currently residing in Queens, NY. She received her BA from Sarah Lawrence College where she graduated with the Lori Hertzberg Prize for Creativity. Her poems and essay have appeared or are forthcoming in Bone Bouquet, Dark Phrases, and RE/VISIONIST. She is a recent Kundiman fellow. With the support of the Engage, Learn, Lead, Act (ELLA) Fellowship and a commitment to social justice based arts education, she has led Write to Resist, a creative writing and zine making workshop series on race, gender, and violence for high school aged Asian American young women. Currently, she is an arts administrator with Elders Share the Arts and a teaching artist with Community-Word Project.

NatalieJiwonPark's most recent chapbook was entitled Dream Farm, which explored the mythical nature of family narratives. She is the author of two other collections, and the proud recipient of the Stanley and Evelyn Lipkin poetry prize. Originally from Woodside, Queens, Natalie also grew up in Albany, NY. She attended Sarah Lawrence College where her poems were given a warm place to grow. A lifelong writer, she also aspires to become a psychiatric nurse practitioner someday. 

MISSION STATEMENT

Kundiman is dedicated to the creation, cultivation and promotion of Asian American poetry.

What excitement! Kundiman fellow Iris A. Law's chapbook Periodicity now available for pre-order

Periodicity by Iris A. Law
Advance Praise for PERIODICITY:

“In PERIODICITY, Iris Law dedicates herself to the subject of women and the scientific pursuits that enthralled them and in most cases became their lifelong obsession and work. The poems’ personae include Marie Lavoisier; Ada (Byron's daughter); sisters Irène Joliot-Curie and Eve Curie Labouisse; Barbara McClintock; Maria Mitchell; Beatrix Potter; Faith Sai So Leong (the first Chinese American dentist); botanist Jane Colden, and nuclear physicist Chien-Shiung Wu. They were wives, partners, sisters, or daughters; and all of them in one way or another have often been cast by history in an auxiliary role, or as overshadowed by someone with greater fame. The lessons they learned from studying the natural world are much like lessons that are valuable to the poet: attention to the sensuous details of the widest array of material existence, to the urge to document, name, and create taxonomies; to tease order out of chaos and the ineffable. Working within both metaphorical and gendered frameworks, the women in these poems successfully refute the fixities inherent in any idea of classification. They proclaim, ‘We do not mirror one another. Rather, we resist replication, shaping our stories stubbornly against our chosen vectors . . .’ To the landscape of contemporary poetry, Iris Law brings a striking and intelligent sensibility, and a lovely, lucid voice; I look forward to reading more from this young poet in the near future.”
—Luisa A. Igloria

“Law makes scientific language delightfully rhythmic, and it’s a revelation to discover how a talented poet can turn the austere language of science into lyrical, though still disciplined, reveries. . . . Though just eighteen poems, this potent collection resonates with insight and flair.”
—Orlando Ricardo Menes 

“Exploring the atomic order of creation and its mysteries, Law’s technique ranges skillfully from open field composition to tercets with luminous lines. . . . the world of PERIODICITY transcends empirical nature to a realm of grace and the soul’”—Karen An-hwei Lee

_About the Author

Iris A. Law is a Kundiman Fellow and the editor of the online Asian American poetry journal and blog, LANTERN REVIEW. Born and raised in New Jersey, she received her M.F.A. in Creative Writing from the University of Notre Dame. She currently lives and works in Lexington, Kentucky. Visit her online at www.irisalaw.com.

Henry W. Leung's Paradise Hunger, Winner of the 2012 Swan Scythe Press Poetry Chapbook Contest, Available Now

Congrats, dear Henry!

Paradise Hunger

By Henry W. Leung

Read an excerpt: “Tombsweeping Day”

Praise for Paradise Hunger

“Exquisitely structured in elegiac lyric tapestries, Paradise Hunger ferries us into a luminous underworld filled with messages of grief and the promise of renewal. From Hawai‘i to Guangdong, Castro Valley to the Gobi Desert, Paradise Hunger maps the intricate geography of mourning, dazzling in its juxtaposition of sorrow and resilience.”

— Stephen Hong Sohn

“Abounding with melodious examples of the lyric narrative poem, Henry W. Leung’s chapbook traverses the experiences of immigration, seasons of loss and grief, and permutations of hunger. From classical mythology to Hawaiian legends, the languages and voices of “talkstory” in Paradise Hunger serve as a locus or guide across displacements of revolution, history, and memory. This is a rich collection to savor, line by line, as Leung muses on questions of home in stanzas eloquently laden with image and allusion: “You gave us peaches, our golden apples of Hera, our home myth. Peaches blooming only once each three thousand years.”

— Karen An-hwei Lee

“Paradise Hunger is a sweet peach that I don’t want to end, so I return to it over and over again. Each reading offers something new: sometimes I read it as an immigration story, then as a multigenerational narrative in which “The generations of migration flit / like hungry ghosts in search of graves…” Other times I read it as a chronicle of the Chinese experience in California. Then it becomes a ghost story, an elegy, a mythology, and an odyssey. Taking cues from masters as recent as Walcott and as far back as Milton and Homer, Henry W. Leung’s compact and multilayered collection—written to make language appear like new again—feels like an epic. I don’t know any other poet as young as Leung that has this level of skill and craft.”

— John Olivares Espinoza

About Henry W. Leung

Henry W. Leung was born in a village in Guangdong, China, and grew up in Honolulu and later in the San Francisco Bay Area. He earned his BA from Stanford and studied abroad at Peking, Cambridge, and Oxford Universities. Now he is a Kundiman Fellow and a Soros Fellow completing his MFA in Fiction at the University of Michigan, where he’ll continue as a Helen Zell Fellow. He has been a teacher in Hong Kong, a mentor/assistant at the Prague Summer Program, and a panelist at AWP. His prose and poetry have recently appeared in Boxcar, Cerise Press, CURA, Flash: The International Short-Short Story Magazine, Memoir (and), and ZYZZYVA. He has served as an editor for the Best American Nonrequired Reading and as a columnist for the Lantern Review.

http://www.swanscythe.com/books/paradise_hunger.html

More on Henry: http://stateofthebook.com/?p=562

Leah Silvieus' Poems in Current Issue of Diode

Read her poems here: http://www.diodepoetry.com/v5n3/content/silvieus_l.html

Born in Seoul, South Korea, and raised in the Mountain West, Leah Silvieus is a recipient of an Alfred Boas Poetry Prize from the Academy of American Poets as well as residencies from Kundiman and the Voices of Our Nation Arts Foundation. Her work has been featured at the O, Miami Poetry Festival, and Asian American Women Artist Association and has appeared or is forthcoming in Asian American Poetry & Writing, Diode, Melusine, The Monarch Review, Rock & Sling, and CaKe.

Congrats, dear Leah!

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On Friday, Oct. 19th, in celebration of Bengali Poet Subodh Sarkar, Kundiman alums Sonia Mukherji and R.A. Villanueva will read with Yusef Komunyakaa at Poets House

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Rattapallax and Kundiman present

I HAD THOUGHT MYSELF A KANGAROO:

A Reading by Bengali Poet Subodh Sarkar


In a rare New York appearance, noted Bengali poet Subodh Sarkar reads from his work in Bengali and English translation and discusses the contemporary Bengali literary scene.  With poets Sonia Mukherji and R.A. Villanueva and special guest Yusef Komunyakaa.

Subodh Sarkar is a major Bengali poet with 22 books of poems and one travelogue on America . Critics find his poetry as ‘incisive, provocative, satiric, and most of all, entertainingly contemporary’.  His poems have been translated into English, French and several Indian languages and published in several journals and anthologies. Sarkar edits Bhashanagar, a Bengali culture magazine with occasional English issues. In 2010 he was appointed as the guest editor of Indian Literature, the flagship journal of Sahitya Akademi.  Sarkar also has participated in a number of international poetry festivals including events in Taiwan, Germany,  and France and was a fellow at the International Writers Program at the University of Iowa.  He recently visited Russia and Turkey as a member of the Indian Writers’ delegation organized by Sahitya Akademi.  He teaches English at City College, Kolkata.

Date and Time: October 19, 2012 - 7:00PM
Event Location: Poets House
10 River Terrace  
New York, NY 10282

Admission free.  Reception to follow.
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Joseph O. Legaspi will read at Poets House for Page Meets Stage on Oct. 17th

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This pairing will take place at the beautiful Poets House in Battery Park City (10 River Terrace) in downtown New York City.

 

 

The series continues on the third Wednesday of October with . . .

Joseph O. Legaspi is the author of Imago (CavanKerry Press), winner of a Global Filipino Literary Award. He lives in Queens, NY and works at Columbia University. A graduate of New York University’s Creative Writing Program, his poems appeared and/or are forthcoming in American Life in Poetry, From the Fishouse, jubilat, World Literature Today, PEN International, Smartish Pace, The Spoon River Poetry Review, Gay & Lesbian Review, The Normal School, and the anthologies Language for a New Century (W.W. Norton), Collective Brightness (Sibling Rivalry Press) and Tilting the Continent (New Rivers Press). A recipient of a poetry fellowship from the New York Foundation for the Arts, he co-founded Kundiman (www.kundiman.org), a non-profit organization serving Asian American poetry.

Born in Trinidad and raised in New York City, Cheryl Boyce-Taylor is the author of  three collections of poetry, Raw Air, Night When Moon Follows, and Convincing the Body. Her work has been published in various anthologies including: Callaloo, Carry the Word, The Mom Egg, To Be Left With The Body, So Much Things To Say:100 Calabash Poets and Making the Trees Shiver. A poet, and teaching artist, she holds an MFA in Poetry from Stonecoast: The University of Southern Maine, and an MSW in Social Work from Fordham University. Boyce-Taylor’s text WATER has been commissioned by Jacob’s Pillow, and The Joyce Theater for Ronald K. Brown /Evidence Dance Company. She currently hosts two monthly reading series in New York City, The Calypso Muse Reading Series and The Glitter Pomegrate Performance Series, she is working on a memoir and a new manuscript of poetry titled, The Red Bible: Poems of Loss and Remembrances after her mother Eugenia Boyce.

Page Meets Stage was born in 2005 when Billy Collins and Taylor Mali read together on the same stage in an event called “Page vs. Stage: The Final Smackdown!” Now it is a monthly series curated by Taylor which brings together two poets—one ostensibly repping the “page,” the other ostensibly repping a more performative style—to read/perform back and forth, poem for poem, continuing the conversation of where poetry exists. Some of the most prominent poets in the United States both in the “academy” and in spoken word circles (Gerald Stern, Mark Doty, Carol Muske-Dukes, Valzhyna Mort, Paul Muldoon, Thomas Lux, Roger Bonair-Agard, Patricia Smith, Rives, Lynne Procope, to name just a few) have been involved.


All Page Meets Stage events are co-productions of Words Worth Ink and Blue Flower Arts. Check out YouTube to see some of the more memorable moments in the series (search for “Page Meets Stage”), or go to www.PageMeetsStage.com for the complete schedule.


Tickets are $12 ($6 students) and are available ONLY at the door on the night of the show. Call 917-743-6911 for more information.

Neil Aitken Wins First Place in Beyond Baroque's Third Annual Poetry Contest

Congratulations, dear Neil!

Beyond Baroque Announces the Winners of its Third Annual Poetry Contest!
Now in it’s third year, the 2012 Beyond Baroque Poetry Contest was judged by Los Angeles poet, teacher and arts organizer, Ms. Suzanne Lummis. Over 800 entries were submitted, and this year the contest was open to poets nationwide, expanded from California poets only for the first two years. Winners receive cash prizes. The first place winner receives $1000, the second place winner receives $500, and the third place winner receives $250.

Mr. Neil Aitken, a resident of Los Angeles and founding editor of Boxcar Poetry Review, has won first place in Beyond Baroque's third annual poetry contest, and will receive $1,000 in prize money. 

Noted Los Angeles poet, and this year’s judge, Ms. Suzanne Lummis, said of Mr. Aitken’s winning poem, “Of all the entries, my first choice, "Vigil," was the one that struck that fine balance between clarity and mystery, simplicity, and shimmering depth. After I'd read it, it continued to echo in my imagination.”

http://www.beyondbaroque.org/