Congratulations to the winner of the 2015 Kundiman Poetry Prize!

Congratulations to Rajiv Mohabir, winner of the 2015 Kundiman Poetry Prize.

Tupelo Press Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Levine and Associate Poetry Editor Cassandra Cleghorn have selected Rajiv Mohabir as winner of the 2015 Kundiman Poetry Prize for his manuscript, The Cowherd's Son.

The winner receives a $1,000 cash prize, publication by Tupelo Press, and national distribution.

Winner of 2015 AWP Intro Journal Award and the 2014 Intro Prize in Poetry by Four Way Books for his first full-length collection The Taxidermist’s Cut (Spring 2016), and recipient of a PEN/ Heim Translation Fund Grant, Rajiv Mohabir received fellowships from Voices of Our Nation’s Artist foundation, Kundiman, and the American Institute of Indian Studies language program. His poetry and translations are internationally published or forthcoming from journals such as Best American Poetry 2015, Quarterly West, Guernica, Prairie Schooner, Crab Orchard Review, Drunken Boat, Anti-, Great River Review, PANK, *and Aufgabe. He received his MFA in Poetry and Translation from at Queens College, CUNY where he was Editor in Chief of the *Ozone Park Literary Journal. Currently he is pursuing a PhD in English from the University of Hawai`i, where he teaches poetry and composition.

The finalists were Radio Tower by Naoko Fujimoto, Cyclorama by Annie Kim, Child of Shame by EJ Koh, Goddess of Democracy by Henry Wei Leung, Autumn Troupe by Miho Nonaka, Tula by Chris Santiago, As Though We Are One by Alexandrine Vo, Republic of Mercy by Sharon Wang, and Overpour by Jane Wong.

Congratulations to the winner and finalists!

Now in its 6th year, the Kundiman Poetry Prize ensures the annual publication of a book by an Asian American poet. The award is open to self-identified Asian American poets at any stage in their careers. For more about the Kundiman Poetry Prize, please visit kundiman.org/prize.

June 26: 2015 Kundiman Retreat Public Reading

KUNDIMAN PUBLIC READING W/ SANDRA LIM, BAO PHI, ARTHUR SZE, GINA APOSTOL, PETER HO DAVIES, & SIGRID NUNEZ 

Come celebrate Kundiman's 12th Annual Writing Retreat as retreat faculty Sandra Lim, Bao Phi, Arthur Sze, Gina Apostol, Peter Ho Davies, & Sigrid Nunez share work with 2015 Kundiman Retreat Fellows. Also sharing their work will be this year's graduating fellows Janine Joseph and W. Todd Kaneko!

Friday, June 26th, 7:00 pm
Fordham University, Lincoln Center
113 W. 60th Street (at Columbus Avenue)
12th Floor Lounge

Directions
Take A, B, C, D & 1 trains to Columbus Circle.
Exit at 60th Street & Broadway. Go west of Columbus Avenue. Upon entering the glass doors inform the security desk that you are attending the Asian American Poetry event. Take escalators up 1 floor to Plaza level. Take elevator up to the 11th floor. Take stairs 1 flight up to the 12th Floor. Enter 12th Floor Lounge.

Free and open to the public. Reception to follow!

***

Sandra Lim is the author of The Wilderness (W.W. Norton, 2014), selected by Louise Glück for the most recent Barnard Women Poets Prize, and a previous collection of poetry, Loveliest Grotesque (Kore Press, 2006). A 2015 Pushcart Prize winner, she has received fellowships from the MacDowell Colony, the Vermont Studio Center, and the Getty Research Institute. Lim was born in Seoul, Korea and educated at Stanford University, UC Berkeley, and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. She is an Assistant Professor of English at the University of Massachusetts, Lowell and lives in Cambridge, MA.


Bao Phi has been a performance poet since 1991. A two-time Minnesota Grand Slam champion and a National Poetry Slam finalist, Bao Phi has appeared on HBO Presents Russell Simmons Def Poetry, and a poem of his appeared in the 2006 Best American Poetry anthology. His first collection of poems, Sông I Sing, was published by Coffee House Press in 2011 to critical acclaim. He has been a City Pages and Star Tribune Artist of the Year. He was recently awarded a Minnesota State Arts Board grant to work on his newest manuscript in 2015. He is the Program Director of the Loft Literary Center.


Arthur Sze published three books in 2014: his ninth book of poetry, Compass Rose (Copper Canyon), a collaboration with artist Susan York, The Unfolding Center (Radius Books), and a bilingual selected poems, Chinese/English, Pig’s Heaven Inn (Beijing: Intellectual Property Publishing House). His other books of poetry include The Ginkgo Light, Quipu, The Redshifting Web: Poems 1970-1998, and Archipelago. A professor emeritus at the Institute of American Indian Arts, as well as a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets, Sze lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.


Gina Apostol's last novel, Gun Dealers' Daughter, won the 2013 Pen/Open Book Award and was shortlisted for the 2014 William Saroyan International Prize. Her first two novels, Bibliolepsy and The Revolution According to Raymundo Mata, both won the Juan Laya Prize for the Novel (Philippine National Book Award). She is working on William McKinley's World, a novel set in Balangiga and Tacloban in 1901, during the Philippine-American War. She lives in New York City and western Massachusetts and grew up in Tacloban, Philippines.


Peter Ho Davies is the author of the novel The Welsh Girl and collections The Ugliest House in the World and Equal Love. A new novel, Your Name in Chinese, is due out in 2016. Born in Britain to Welsh and Chinese parents, Davies now makes his home in the US. He has taught at the University of Oregon, Emory and Northwestern and is now on the faculty of the MFA Program in Creative Writing at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.


Sigrid Nunez has published six novels: A Feather on the Breath of God, Naked Sleeper, Mitz: The Marmoset of Bloomsbury, For Rouenna, The Last of Her Kind, and Salvation City. Her most recent book is Sempre Susan: A Memoir of Susan Sontag. Nunez received a Whiting Writer’s Award in 1993. She was the 2000-2001 Rome Prize Fellow in Literature at the American Academy in Rome. In 2003, she was elected as a Literature Fellow to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In spring 2005, she was the Berlin Prize Fellow at the American Academy in Berlin. Nunez has taught at Amherst College, Smith College, Columbia University, Princeton University and the New School. She lives in New York City.

May 23: Coast to Coast - Honoring Our Literary Ancestors

 

 

On Saturday, May 23rd, three Asian American literary organizations across the country will come together as a community and a family to honor literary ancestors, mentors and teachers that have inspired and emboldened us throughout the years.  

This event will take place in real-time as Kearny Street Workshop, Kundiman and The Twins Cities Asian American Literary Community share readings, collaborative writing and more. See below for region events and times.

---

The East Coast Honors 
Fay Chiang & Jose Garcia Villa

with readings by Nancy Bulalacao and Alison Roh Park
(co-sponsored by FAM, Fordham University, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council and UniPro)

Join Kundiman at Fordham University for readings, collaborative creative writing and a special reception. 

Saturday, May 23rd
8:00 pm EST
Fordham University, Lincoln Center Campus
113 W. 60th Street at Columbus Avenue
Room 816
Free and Open to the Public
www.kundiman.org

Directions:  
Take the A/B/C/D/1 train to Columbus Circle. Upon entering the glass doors inform the security desk that you are attending the English Department event. Take escalators up 1 floor to Plaza level. Take the elevator to the 8th floor and proceed to Room 816.

---

The Midwest Honors
Esther Suzuki & Vijit Ramchandani

with readings by Juliana Hu Pegues, Marlina Gonzalez, June Noronha, and others

Saturday, May 23rd
7:00 pm CST
Bedlam Lowertown Location
213 4th St E, St Paul, MN 55101
Free and Open to the Public

Please note this is the Saint Paul Bedlam Location
http://bedlamtheatre.org/bedlam-lowertown/

---

The West Coast Honors
Al Robles & Jeff Tagami

with readings by Shirley Ancheta, Jason Bayani, Jade Cho, and Caitlyn Clark
(sponsored by APICC’s United States of Asian American Festival)

Three cities, three Asian American literary histories. Together we will be honoring our literary ancestors via simulcast (NY, MN, SF). Live jazz by Karl Evangelista and a political poster exhibition curated by Leon Sun will be on display.

Saturday, May 23rd
4:00 - 8:00 pm PST
Chinese Culture Center
750 Kearny St. #3, San Francisco, CA 94108
www.kearnystreet.org

Photo Credit: Barbara Jane Reyes

---

HONOREE BIOGRAPHIES (UNDER CONSTRUCTION)

Fay Chiang has been a poet, visual artist, community and cultural activist in NYC Chinatown and the Lower East Side for the past 44 years. In the 1970s, Fay was executive director of the Basement Workshop, the first Asian American multidisciplinary cultural organization in NYC. Fay then worked at Henry Street Settlement, NY Newsday’s Public Affairs Office, Poets & Writers’ Readings/Workshops before joining Project Reach where she currently develops programs for young people at risk. Fay also volunteers for organizations focused on arts, economic justice, community safety, and community organizing.

Known as the “Pope of Greenwich Village,” Jose Garcia Villa had a special status as the only Asian poet among a group of modern literary giants in 1940’s New York that included, E. E. Cummings, Mark Van Doren, W. H. Auden, Tennessee Williams, and a young Gore Vidal. Villa was a global poet who was admired for “the reverence, the raptness, the depth of concentration in [his] bravely deep poems.

Vijit Ramchandani grew up in India and came to the United States in 1978. He described himself as a once-in-a-while poet, even though he had been writing for many years. He had read his poems on Minnesota Public Radio as well as many community events, including the Twin Cities protest cabaret against the play Miss Saigon.. Vijit worked at the Wilder Foundation as a management consultant for community organizations.  A book of his poems, American Mango, was published posthumously.

Al Robles (1930-2009) was an influential Filipino American poet and community activist in San Francisco. Born in 1930, he  grew up in the Fillmore district of San Francisco. As a community activist, he was instrumental in the political fight against the city to stop the demolition of the I-Hotel on Kearny Street. In his writing, Al Robles combined heritage with experience. As a beat-poet, Al’s poetry honored Filipino elders (Manongs) and also encouraged the younger generation to connect to their Filipino roots. Verses about traditional Filipino foods, community personalities in San Francisco resulted in countless poems, many of which were written on scraps of paper and napkins, filling the walls of his mind, and his life. His two published works are Looking for Ifugao Mountain: Paghahanap Sa Bundok Ng Ifugao 1977 by Children’s Book Press,’and Rappin’ with Ten Thousand Carabaos in the Dark, published (1992) by UCLA Asian American Writers Center.

The late Esther Torii Suzuki came to Macalester College in 1942 at the age of 16 from a Japanese detention camp in Portland, Oregon, where she was released specifically because of her acceptance to Macalester College. The first Japanese-American student at Macalester, Ms. Suzuki graduated from Macalester in 1946 with an honors degree in sociology.  In the years following her graduation, Ms. Suzuki played many roles: community leader, volunteer, activist, and mentor. As a social worker for Ramsey County, Ms. Suzuki spent most of her career participating in civil rights groups and developing programs specifically to assist the Southeast Asian-American population. Later in her life, Ms. Suzuki established herself as a storyteller and writer and gave a voice to both the hardships and accomplishments she had encountered as a Japanese-American.  Awarded the Macalester College Alumni Service Award in 1999, Ms. Suzuki passed away that same year.  Catharine Deaver Lealtad and Esther Torii Suzuki received the Macalester College Board of Trustees Award for Meritorious and Distinguished Service on September 13, 2002.

Jeff Tagami was born in Watsonville, California, in 1954. Originally from the Philippines, Tagami’s parents immigrated to California from Hawaii, and Tagami’s work frequently describes the struggles of Asian agricultural workers in the region. Tagami attended Cabrillo College before moving to San Francisco in the 1970s. He earned his BA from the University of California-Santa Cruz and an MA from San Francisco State University, both in the 1990s. He published one collection of poetry, October Light (2002), and helped edit four anthologies. His poem “Song of Pajaro” was featured in the PBS documentary The United States of Poetry.

---

READER BIOGRAPHIES (UNDER CONSTRUCTION)

East Coast

Nancy Bulalacao studied performance poetry with Kurt Lamkin and Pablo Medina at New School.  She has created and curated public programs for the Asian American community in NYC for 20 years.  She was cofounder of Poets Theater and currently prinicipal of FAM (Filipino American Museum).  This coming June she and her husband are expecting their first baby, a little boy.

Alison Roh Park is a Pushcart-nominated poet, Kundiman Asian American Poetry fellow, and winner of the Poetry Society of America New York Chapbook Fellowship and Poets and Writers Magazine Amy Award. In 2010, she received the Jerome Foundation Travel and Study Grant in Literature to travel to rural South Korea to study gender and the impact of U.S. foreign policy and globalization on family farming. She co-founded The Good Times Collective, a group of emerging woman of color poets from the outer boroughs of New York City.

MIDWEST

Marlina Gonzalez has been working as a producer and curator for media and arts organizations such as Asian CineVision in New York as well as the Walker Art Center and Intermedia Arts in Minneapolis for more than two decades.  In 2009, Marlina embarked on a new career direction as an in independent artist, curator, and writer focusing on creating her own work in theater, film, video and new media arts. Marlina had the honor of working with Esther Suzuki and Vijit Ramchandani as one of the co-founders of Asian American Renaissance.  “The legacy of Esther’s precious family stories and Vijit’s elegant poetry are reminders that each of us stands on the shoulders of those before us and we in turn must continue to hold firmly to support the artistry of those after us.”

Juliana Hu Pegues is a poet, playwright, performer, and academic.  She will start teaching next fall at Smith College as an Assistant Professor in English and Women & Gender Studies.  She is proud to have known Esther Suzuki both through Asian American Renaissance and in protesting Miss Saigon.  She is honored to read Esther's words.

June Noronha joined the Bush Foundation in 2005 as a strategic officer and now serves as senior manager with the Native Nations Team, where she works on nation building and government reform in Indian country.   She has worked in Asia, Latin America, Africa and the Middle East.   A refugee and immigrant to the US, June is native to Kenya with immigrant parents from India, She is passionate about bridging divides, music of all genres, traditional forms of art, and keeping closely connected with family and friends around the world. A painter and community activist, June has been deeply engaged in advancing civil and human rights in and with Asian- American, Native, and Latino communities.

West Coast

Shirley Ancheta

Jason Bayani is the author of "Amulet" from Write Bloody Press. He's an MFA grad from Saint Mary's College, a Kundiman fellow, and is currently the program manager for Kearny Street Workshop

Jade Cho is a poet and educator from Oakland, California. She has been a member of 2 nationally competing slam teams, winning Best Political Poem and Best Writing as a Team at College Unions Poetry Slam 2013. She has taught in June Jordan’s Poetry for the People program at UC Berkeley, worked as a teaching artist at Youth Speaks, and performed at venues across the nation. Her first collection of poetry, In the Tongue of Ghosts, is forthcoming with Youth Speaks’ First Word Press.

Caitlyn Clark is a Korean American youth poet from the Bay Area, CA. She is fifteen years old and has been working with San Francisco non-profit Youth Speaks since 2014, after becoming the Youth Speaks Grand Slam Champion and representing the Bay Area at Brave New Voices. Caitlyn has also performed at the Hollywood Bowl in John Legend's tribute to Marvin Gaye. She can be contacted via twitter, @lilacisms

May 17: A Celebration of Kundiman at Verlaine

May 17: A Celebration of Kundiman at Verlaine with Aziza Barnes, Cornelius Eady, Shonni Enelow, Rigoberto González, Monica Sok, Christopher Soto, & Kelly Zen-Yie Tsai

Join us for a blowout CELEBRATION OF VERLAINE: a cross-cultural, cross-generational poetry carousal featuring:

AZIZA BARNES, CORNELIUS EADY, RIGOBERTO GONZÁLEZ, MONICA SOK, CHRISTOPHER SOTO, & KELLY ZEN-YIE TSAI 

Sunday, May 17
Verlaine Bar & Lounge
110 Rivington St, New York, NY

Happy hour: 4-5pm
Feature Reading: 5pm
$5 suggested donation


BIOS:

AZIZA BARNES is blk & alive. Born in Los Angeles, she currently lives in Bedstuy, New York. Her first chapbook, me Aunt Jemima and the nailgun, was the first winner of the Exploding Pinecone Prize and published from Button Poetry. You can find her work in PANK, pluck!, Muzzle, Callaloo, Union Station, and other journals. She is a poetry & non-fiction editor at Kinfolks Quarterly, a Callaloo fellow and graduate from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. She is a member of The Dance Cartel & the divine fabrics collective. She loves a good suit & anything to do with Motown. 
 

CORNELIUS EADY is the author of eight books of poetry, including Hardheaded Weather: New and Selected Poems (Putnam, April 2008). His second book, Victims of the Latest Dance Craze, won the Lamont Prize from the Academy of American Poets in 1985; in 2001 Brutal Imagination was a finalist for the National Book Award. His work in theater includes the libretto for an opera, “Running Man,” which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Drama in 1999. His play, “Brutal Imagination,” won Newsday’s Oppenheimer award in 2002. In 1996 Eady co-founded, with writer Toi Derricotte, the Cave Canem summer workshop/retreat for African American poets. More than a decade later, Cave Canem is a thriving national network of black poets, as well as an institution offering regional workshops, readings, a first book prize, and the summer retreat.

SHONNI ENELOW writes for and about theater and performance. She is an assistant professor of English at Fordham University. Her latest work of theater, The Power of Emotion, premiered this January in the Public Theatre's Under the Radar Festival Incoming Series. Her performance lecture, "My Dinner with Bernard Frechtman," was recently published in Aufgabe. Her critical monograph, Method Acting and Its Discontents: On American Psycho-drama, is forthcoming from Northwestern University Press. 

RIGOBERTO GONZÁLEZ is the author 15 books, most recently the poetry collection Unpeopled Eden, which won the Lambda Literary Award and the Lenore Marshall Prize from the Academy of American Poets. A professor of English at Rutgers-Newark, the State University of New Jersey, he is the recipient of Guggenheim, NEA and USA Rolón fellowships; a NYFA grant in poetry; the Shelley Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America; The Poetry Center Book Award; the Barnes & Noble Writer for Writers Award; and the 2015 Bill Whitehead Award for Lifetime Achievement from the Publishing Triangle.
 

MONICA SOK is a Cambodian poet from Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Currently, she is completing an MFA in poetry at New York University. A Kundiman fellow, her poems are forthcoming in Narrative, Crab Orchard Review, and other publications. She lives in Brooklyn.
 

CHRISTOPHER SOTO (aka LOMA) is a queer latin@ punk poet and prison abolitionist. They are currently curating Nepantla: A Journal Dedicated to Queer Poets of Color in collaboration with The Lambda Literary Foundation. They have work published in Columbia: A Journal , MiPOesias, Apogee Journal and more. They are an MFA candidate in Poetry at NYU and the 2014-2015 Intern at Poetry Society of America.
 

KELLY ZEN-YIE TSAI is an award-winning spoken word poet, playwright, and filmmaker whose work has been featured at over 600 venues worldwide including the White House, Apollo Theater in Harlem, Kennedy Center, Lincoln Center, BAM, Tyra Banks’ Flawsome Ball, & three seasons of “HBO Def Poetry.” Award recipient of the Illinois Arts Council, Asian American Arts Alliance, New York Foundation for the Arts, Asian Women Giving Circle, and Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Kelly has been profiled on Idealist in NYC’s Top 40 NYC’ers Who Make Positive Social Change, AngryAsianMan.com’s “30 Most Influential Asian Americans Under 30,” and HBO’s “East of Main Street: Asians Aloud.”


Get there early for drinks, seats, and chat!

Master Class with Myung Mi Kim for Fordham Graduate Students

On March 25, on behalf of Kundiman, Myung Mi Kim led a powerhouse Master Class for Fordham graduate students at the Fordham Lincoln Center campus. Check out the video and the below student testimonials.

Myung Mi Kim’s Masters class is unlike any graduate experience I have ever had. In two hours the way I thought about language and writing was transformed. I am leaving today so revitalized with creative energy. Walls and blockades in my own process have been broken down and the meaning I knew was there was articulated to me so clearly, giving me a coherent mission in my creative life. I wish I could take this class again and again. I will use what I learned today forever.
--Anna Marie Anastasi 

In a two-hour session on cold rainy Wednesday night at the end of March Myung Mi Kim radially changed my perception of language. Her approach diverged from any workshop I’ve experienced in that it not only activated our own creative potential (and reaffirmed for us the pleasure we take words—why we came here in the first place!) but forced us to re-imagine our theoretical conception of how language works. Myung raised profound questions about how to express the inexpressible and the moral responsibility of poetry. I got chills the entire way through. I was exhausted coming in and now I can’t wait to go home and start working. Thank you!
--Rachel Federman

I came in feeling overwhelmed and tired – but I am leaving feeling inspired – a rekindling – Taking a few hours (not enough for sure!) to remember why and hear and feel an enjoyment about language that sometimes feels lost or buried (especially 6 weeks before a semester ends). The importance of feeling about writing is enough to activate the desire to think this way again. I cannot thank you enough. --Amie Reilly

I loved the Master class – it made me think of language in a completely new way. The idea of inhabiting language as a space (which necessarily means uninhabiting it) was particularly powerful for me. She offered a brief reading list for further study, and I wish we could have a class designed for the examination and discussion of this subject. Poetry in general is so typically devalued in both our culture and our education system – a class like this is important to have.
--Allison Wright

Myung Mi Kim’s discussion of language is a super-productive arrangement/revision/discussion on language as political, ethical, aesthetic. Opportunities to engage in such discussions, particularly within a classroom presence which brings together so many different perspectives, feels all too rare. An exceedingly excellent experience. --Aaron Pinnix

I came in wanting to learn the technicalities of the process of poetics, of “poesis,” but she defied those expectations. She introduced ideology that freed up self-imposed or external barriers to my writing process. She did not leave it at just ideology, theory – but we put it in practice with experiments. What a joy it was to take this class, to learn from her. I hope there will be more classes like this. --Kathrene Binag

Myung’s class was a wonderful experience. Even though I don’t really work directly with poetry, she helped me think about poetry as something that could exist beyond the purely linguistic: that language experience includes physically, materiality, etc. Myung’s use of theory to explain her ideas, then transitioning to activities, was a great pedagogical decision that made the class incredibly rewarding for a 2-hour session. 
--Chris

It was a fascinating talk. I’ve always considered myself as a consumer of poetry, not a producer/creator, primarily because of the language barrier I’m struggling with English as a foreign language, but her idea about the materiality of language gave me a spark that I can perhaps start from the absence of language, which I think will absolutely help my future research. Thank you so much. --Jihyn Yun

I have never taken a class like this and it completely blew me away. I learned a lot about the uses of language. I have never thought about the physicality of words before. The exercises we did helped to divorce me from the idea of writing as a linear process. This was completely freeing and it made writing feel joyful again (it’s cheesy but true). Sometimes in grad school I feel awed by the talent around me and it can be intimidating, so to have this experience was an incredible gift. --Sarah Shultz

March 8: Kundiman & Verlaine ft. Bethany Carlson, W. Todd Kaneko, & Monica Ong

March 8: Kundiman & Verlaine ft. Bethany Carlson, W. Todd Kaneko, & Monica Ong

Join us for a night of words & libation with readings by: BETHANY CARLSON, W. TODD KANEKO, & MONICA ONG

Happy hour: 4-5pm
Open mic: 4:30-5pm
Feature Reading: 5pm
$5 suggested donation

RSVP on Facebook!

---

Bethany Carlson is an MDiv candidate at Yale University and holds an MFA from Indiana University. She is interested in how lyricism enhances sacred liturgy, invites eschatological imagination, and transcends a Christological understanding of narrative time. Bethany is a Kundiman Fellow and a member of The Lilly Graduate Fellows Program in Humanities & the Arts.

W. Todd Kaneko is the author of The Dead Wrestler Elegies (Curbside Splendor, 2014). His poems, essays and stories can be seen in Bellingham Review, Los Angeles Review, The Normal School, The Collagist, Blackbird, Third Coast, Song of the Owashtanong: Grand Rapids Poetry in the 21st Century, Bring the Noise: The Best Pop Culture Essays from Barrelhouse Magazine and many other journals and anthologies. A recipient of fellowships from Kundiman and the Kenyon Review Writers Workshop, he lives in Grand Rapids, Michigan where he is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Writing at Grand Valley State University.

Monica Ong is a visual artist and poet whose hybrid image-poems juxtapose diagram and diary. She completed her MFA in Digital Media at the Rhode Island School of Design and is also a Kundiman poetry fellow. Her work has been published in several journals including the Lantern Review, Drunken Boat, Glassworks Magazine, Loaded Bicycle, Tidal Basin Review, and the Seneca Review. She has also been exhibiting artwork for over a decade nationally and internationally. Ms. Ong’s debut collection, Silent Anatomies, was selected by poet Joy Harjo as winner of the Kore Press First Book Award. Silent Anatomies will be released in March 2015.

Kundiman Forever Recurring Donor Drive

WE DID IT!

We raised over $15,485 in annual funds during our Kundiman Forever campaign, which ended Lunar New Year 2015.

A heartfelt thank you to the following 116 donors during this drive:

Anonymous Donor / Anonymous Donor / Anonymous Donor / Nawaaz Ahmed / Neil Aitken / Kimberly Alidio / Gina Apostol / Sonia Arora / Marissa Aroy / Fatimah Asghar / Hossannah Asuncion / Cristiana Baik / JoAnn Balingit / Rick Barot / Jason Bayani / Neville Bendiola / Tamiko Beyer / Jeffrey Boyle / Marci Calabretta / Jung Har Chae / Wo Chan / Michelle Chan Brown / Constance Chan / Elzie Chan-Englender / Jennifer Chang / Cathy Linh Che / Karissa Chen / Lisa Chen / Eduardo C. Corral / Bruce Covey / Rachelle Cruz / Lawrence Minh-Bui Davis / Oliver de la Paz / Duy Ba Doan / Melanie Elvena / Anjelica Enaje / Marlon Esguerra / Tarfia Faizullah / Clara Fang / Rebecca Gambito / Sarah Gambito / Mary Glassanos / Eugene Gloria / Nathaniel Go / Rachel Gray / April Naoko Heck / Lee Herrick / Paul Hlava / Ashaki Jackson / Janine Joseph / Kristiana Kahakauwila / W. Todd Kaneko / Mark Keats / Mike Keo / Swati Khurana / Eddie Kim / Dan Lau / Esther Lee / Joseph O. Legaspi / Muriel Leung / Jane Lin / Patti Lynn / Mia Malhotra / Donna Mark / Laren McClung / Feliz Lucia Molina / Ansley Moon / Vikas Menon / Saretta Morgan / David Mura / Kristin Naca / Heather Nagami / Michael Nardone / Jyothi Natarajan / Aimee Nezhukumatathil / Hieu Minh Nguyen / Tiana Nobile / Benita Novena / Matthew O'Donnell / Matthew Olzmann / Janine Oshiro / Monica Ong / Jonathan Padua / Soo Mi Park / Chandrika Patel / Soham Patel / Dustin Parsons / Michelle Peñaloza / Michelle Naka Pierce / Narayan Raj / Paisley Rekdal / David Rohlfing / Lee Ann Roripaugh / Mg Roberts / Christine Rodgers / Brynn Saito / Nicky Sa-eun Schildkraut / Leah Schlacter / Solmaz Sharif / Sujata Shekar / Chad Shomura / Ricco Siasoco / Melissa Sipin / David Song / Lara Stapleton / Sharon Suzuki–Martinez / Nghiem Tran / Oliver Triunfo / Jennifer Tseng / Kristine Uyeda / R.A. Villanueva / David Weinzimmer / Shelley Wong / Jenny Xie / Debbie Yee / Margarita Zilberman / Maria Zurbano

As a fellow, I am so grateful for your support in building Kundiman from the ground up. Kundiman gave me a first book prize; a community across America; book tour buddies; life advice when I most needed direction. I cherish this community and love it with all my heart.

Love,

Cathy Linh Che

Kundiman Fellow, Poetry Prize Winner, & Managing Director

Kundiman Poetry Prize Has a New Publisher

Press Release Contact: info@kundiman.org

The Kundiman Poetry Prize has a new publisher

New York, NY—Kundiman, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the creation and cultivation of Asian American writing, has partnered with Tupelo Press as the new book publisher of The Kundiman Poetry Prize.

Tupelo Press, which published their first five titles in 2001, is a literary press devoted to discovering and publishing works of poetry, literary fiction, and creative nonfiction by emerging and established writers. An ideal partner for Kundiman, Tupelo Press not only publishes aesthetically pleasing books, but they place high regard on excellent writing and diversity, seeking works with “a blend of language, imagination, distinctiveness, and craft.”

Now in its 6th year, the Kundiman Poetry Prize ensures the annual publication of a book by an Asian American poet. The award is open to self-identified Asian American poets at any stage in their careers. Winner also receives $1,000.

Full-length manuscript entries are accepted through the online entry system from February 1 to March 15, 2015. For complete entry guidelines, please visit: http://kundiman.org/prize/

November 16: Kundiman & Verlaine ft. Jay Deshpande, Sandra Lim, & Jee Leong Koh w/ translator Keisuke Tsubono

Kundiman & Verlaine ft. Jay Deshpande, Sandra Lim, & Jee Leong Koh w/ translator Keisuke Tsubono

Join us for a night of words & libation with readings by:

JAY DESHPANDE, SANDRA LIM, & JEE LEONG KOH w/ translator KEISUKE TSUBONO 

Open bar: 4-5pm
Open mic: 4:30-5pm
Feature Reading: 5pm
$5 suggested donation

RSVP on Facebook!

** This event was funded in part by Poets & Writers, Inc. through public funds from the New York State Council of the Arts in partnership with the City Council with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature. *

---

Jay Deshpande’s poems have appeared in Narrative, Sixth Finch, Atlas Review, Handsome, Forklift, Ohio and elsewhere. He is the author of Love the Stranger, forthcoming from YesYes Books in 2015. He has studied poetry at Columbia University and served as poetry editor of AGNI. He lives in Brooklyn. You can find him @jdeshpan and at jaydeshpande.com.

 

Sandra Lim is the author of The Wilderness (W.W. Norton, 2014), selected by Louise Glück for the Barnard Women Poets Prize, and a previous collection of poetry, Loveliest Grotesque (Kore Press, 2006). A 2015 Pushcart Prize winner, she has received fellowships from the MacDowell Colony, the Vermont Studio Center, and the Getty Research Institute. Lim was born in Seoul, Korea and educated at Stanford University, UC Berkeley, and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. She is an Assistant Professor of English at the University of Massachusetts, Lowell and lives in Cambridge, MA.

 

Jee Leong Koh is the author of four books of poems, including Seven Studies for a Self Portrait (Bench Press). His latest collection The Pillow Book (Math Paper Press) has been translated into Japanese by Keisuke Tsubono, and published in an illustrated bilingual edition by Awai Books. It is shortlisted for the 2014 Singapore Literature Prize. Jee is the co-chair of the inaugural Singapore Literature Festival in NYC, and the curator of the arts website Singapore Poetry (http://singaporepoetry.com/). He has a new book of poems forthcoming from Carcanet Press (UK) in July 2015. 

 

Keisuke Tsubono is a translator, writer, editor, and scholar of American literature. He is also a co-founder of Awai Books, Ph.D student in contemporary literary studies at the University of Tokyo, and Fulbright visiting student researcher at New York University (2014-2015).