How will we continue to step into our power together?
Introducing Kundiman's Online Classes
With the intention of sustaining warmth, connection, and collective art-making at this time, we're happy to unveil virtual opportunities to write and commune together with a new set of online classes this summer! All classes will meet once a week for 6 weeks and have a scholarship spot available, and are open to all writers of color. Registration is open now!
Starting on June 15th, T Kira Madden will be teaching a course for fiction and nonfiction writers focusing on setups and payoffs called "The Hook."
George Abraham will teach "It's My Party and I'll __ If I Want to: Mess & Memory in Poetry" starting on July 15th.
Rowan Hisayo Buchanan will be helping fiction writers to "Jumpstart Your Novel" beginning July 21st!
We’ll hope to offer more virtual programs in the future. Stay in touch with us if you have any suggestions!
Announcing Our 2020 Mentorship Lab Fellows and Finalists!
We are thrilled to announce the Mentorship Fellows & Finalists for our 2020 Mentorship Lab!
Starting in August, we'll be welcoming these nine emerging writers to our second Mentorship Lab, which includes multi-genre master classes, intimate writing workshops, a $1000 stipend, and individual mentorship meetings. This year's Fellows will be learning alongside Hala Alyan, our Poetry Mentor; Gina Apostol, our Fiction Mentor; Ching-In Chen, our Poetry/Cross-Genre Mentor; and Mayukh Sen, our Creative Nonfiction Mentor! The Mentorship Lab will run from July 2020–December 2020 and close with a culminating reading. We're looking forward to sharing this space of creation, collaboration, and community with everyone involved.
Congratulations to our 2020 Mentorship Fellows:
Veasna Has, Creative Nonfiction Fellow
Promiti Islam, Creative Nonfiction Fellow
Wilson Wong, Creative Nonfiction Fellow
Christopher James Llego, Fiction Fellow
Yasmin Adele Majeed, Fiction Fellow
Sarah Wang, Fiction Fellow
Huiying B. Dandelion, Poetry Fellow
Ayesha Raees, Poetry Fellow
t. tran le, Poetry Fellow
We'd also like to congratulate the finalists of the Mentorship Lab.
Creative Nonfiction Finalists:
Hannah Bae
Julie Chen
Giaae Kwon
Hunter Lu
Nara Shin
Fiction Finalists:
Brandon Choi
Maz Do
Amy Haejung
Sunny Lee
Aarti Monteiro
Poetry Finalists:
Melissa Ho
Mingpei Li
Alice Liang
Angbeen Saleem
Sharanya Sharma
You can learn more about our 2020 Mentorship Lab Fellows and Mentors here. We're grateful to the Jerome Foundation, whose support made this program possible.
2020 Mentorship Lab Fellows, from L-R by row:
Promiti Islam, Huiying B. Dandelion, Ayesha Raaes
Christopher James Llego, Yasmin Adele Majeed, t. tran le
Sarah Wang, Veasna Has, Wilson Wong
The Impact of Kundiman's Wikipedia Edit-a-Thon for Asian American Literature
Kundiman is excited to host our fifth Wikipedia Edit-a-Thon in honor of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month this May! We hosted our first Edit-a-Thon with Wikimedia NYC in May of 2018. We wanted to bolster the presence of Asian American literature, writers, and literary organizations online by calling our community to address inaccurate and missing Wikipedia pages related to Asian American literature.
In our past four gatherings in the past two years, we have added 42,530 words to Wikipedia on Asian American writers. We’ve created 33 articles and edited 159 articles. The articles that we’ve edited and added have had over 400,000 views as of May 2020!
Check out our Wikipedia Edit-a-Thon Recap page to see the impact our community has made online. And join us May 17th to May 22nd for a week-long virtual Wikipedia Edit-a-Thon with Wikimedia NYC. You can signup and see the free Zoom training session times on our Wikipedia page now!
Support the Kundiman Forever Recurring Donor Campaign!
Rachna Reddy, Elizabeth “Lizzie” Tran, Melody S. Gee, W. Todd Kaneko, Christopher James Llego, Pik-Shuen Fung, Annesha Sengupta. Photo by Margarita Corporan.
With the support of a community that shares and understands my struggle as an Asian American immigrant, for the first time, I feel empowered to write in order to affirm my identity and voice. Kundiman has shown me that becoming a writer isn’t an impossible and futile journey. And that in fact it can be the most enriching and empowering journey I'll ever embark on. —Nghiem Tran, Kundiman Fellow
As of April 23rd, STOP AAPI HATE has received almost 1500 reports of harassment and assault against Asians. With anti-Asian discrimination on the rise, we need our community more than ever to weather this crisis and amplify brilliant Asian American voices in literature speaking on their own terms.
Participate today in #GivingTuesdayNow and support our month-long Kundiman Forever Recurring Donors campaign goal of $10,000 in new or increased monthly gifts. These funds will create new accessible online workshops to serve our community at large and, to better meet the needs of the local Asian American literary communities, strengthen programming through our 8 Regional Home Groups. Just 36 new recurring donors at $25 a month would help us provide nurturing spaces for Asian American writers everywhere.
Will you stand in solidarity as one of 36 advocates championing Asian American voices?
This Asian and Pacific Islander American Heritage month, strengthen the collective voices of our community and push back against the violence Asians and Pacific Islanders in America have faced by giving to Kundiman Forever today. Every donation is a step toward a future we all deserve. We thank you for your generous support.
Endless gratitude for the 140 donors who supported our Kundiman Forever Recurring Donors campaign! We are so grateful for your generosity and the leadership of our amazing Team Members - all of you continue to inspire and sustain us!
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As always, we're grateful to all of our donors, and you can see their names recognized here.
Happy Asian Pacific American Heritage Month!
Happy Asian Pacific American Heritage Month!
To celebrate, we've compiled a list of 10 books by Asian American writers to read this May.
Kundiman, with the help of Wikimedia NYC, is hosting a weeklong Wikipedia Edit-a-Thon for Asian American Literature from May 17th–May 22nd. Join us at any time during the week, from anywhere, and help us reclaim Wikipedia! Over the past 2 years, we have added over 40,000 words to Wikipedia with over 400,000 page views. Visit our Wikipedia recap page to see the full impact.
On May 30th, join us for an online workshop with Purvi Shah exploring Poetry & Protest! This workshop will examine poetic engagement with protest, particularly the connections of public engagement, craft, and lyrical activism on the page and shared aloud in the world. Register here! Our communications intern Helli Fang also curated a collection of Poems of Protest to read for National Poetry Month; read it on our here.
Lastly, join us this May 4th for our Kundiman Forever recurring donors campaign! This campaign will fund the creation of online workshops and strengthen our regional programming to better meet the needs of the Asian American literary community. To support our mission with a gift, click here!
10 Books to Read for Asian Pacific American Heritage Month
In celebration of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, we've compiled a list of 10 books by Asian American writers to read this May. Check out the list here!
Wikipedia Edit-a-Thon for Asian American Literature
May 17th–May 22nd, 2020
Join Kundiman in this weeklong marathon of Wikipedia editing! Join us at any time during the week, and help us reclaim Wikipedia & address the erasure of Asian American writers online. We will be hosting online trainings via Zoom throughout the week. More info available here.
We’ve added 40,000 words to Wikipedia
Over the course of four Edit-a-Thons held in the past two years, we have collectively added 42,530 words to Wikipedia on Asian American literature. The articles that we’ve edited and added have accumulated over 400,000 views as of May 2020! Read the full recap on our website here!
Poetry & Protest Workshop with Purvi Shah
Saturday, May 30th, 2020
1:00 PM—3:00 PM ET
This workshop will examine poetic engagement with protest, particularly the connections of public engagement, craft, and lyrical activism on the page and shared aloud in the world. This workshop is free and open to all writers who self-identify as Asian American. There are 20 spots available; register here!
10 Asian American Poems of Protest
Photo courtesy of Corky Lee/UCLA Labor Center
In celebration of National Poetry Month, we’ve curated a list of poems continuing along the theme of the 2020 Poetry Coalition Project, I am deliberate and afraid of nothing: Poetry & Protest, based off the poem “New Year’s Day” by Audre Lorde. Read the poems here.
Building a Future We All Deserve
Join us this May for the Kundiman Forever recurring donor campaign! Our goal is $10,000 in new or increased monthly gifts. Your gifts will fund the creation of accessible online workshops and will strengthen our Regional programming. To support our mission, click here!
10 Books to Read This Asian Pacific American Heritage Month
10 Books to Read This Asian Pacific American Heritage Month
Abraham’s highly anticipated debut constructs a dialogue in which “every pronoun is a Free Palestine.” Through poems of immense emotion, and the use of alluring form, Abraham crafts work that examines what we come to own by existing. Birthright begs readers to stay, to stay lucid, to stay alive, to stay present in this very moment; as it knows now is all we are guaranteed. As trauma seeps through generations, can the body deconstruct its own inheritance? In a world that only takes, what is owed? What is your Birthright, and where is home?
Starling Days by Rowan Hisayo Buchanan
A gorgeously wrought novel, variously about love, mythology, mental illness, Japanese beer, and the times we need to seek out milder psychological climates, Rowan Hisayo Buchanan’s Starling Days—written in exquisite prose rich with lightly ironic empathy—is a complex and compelling work of fiction by a singularly gifted writer.
Cut to Bloom by Arhm Choi Wild
What does it take to unlearn the survival instinct of trauma? What does it take to choose our tools instead of wearing down the ones we’ve been handed? In Cut to Bloom, Arhm Choi Wild attempts to forge answers to these questions by navigating the hyphen, sometimes chasm, between the Asian and American identity, between queerness and the politics of belonging, between survival and the possibility of choice.
Kimiko Hahn’s tenth collection investigates the grip that seemingly insignificant objects exert on our lives. Itself a cabinet of curiosities, the collection provokes the same surprise, wonder, and pangs of recognition Hahn felt upon opening drawer after drawer of these swallowed, and retrieved, objects—a radiator key, a child’s perfect attendance pin, a mother-of-pearl button. The speaker of these moving poems sees reflections of these items in the heartbreaking detritus of her family home, and in her long-dead mother’s Japanese jewelry.
On the night of June Fourth, a woman gives birth in a Beijing hospital alone. Thus begins the unraveling of Su Lan, a brilliant physicist who until this moment has successfully erased her past, fighting what she calls the mind’s arrow of time. A story of migrations literal and emotional, spanning time, space and class, Little Gods is a sharp yet expansive exploration of the aftermath of unfulfilled dreams, an immigrant story in negative that grapples with our tenuous connections to memory, history, and self.
The Magical Language of Others by E.J. Koh
The Magical Language of Others is a powerful and aching love story in letters, from mother to daughter. After living in America for over a decade, Eun Ji Koh’s parents return to South Korea for work, leaving fifteen-year-old Eun Ji and her brother behind in California. Overnight, Eun Ji finds herself abandoned and adrift in a world made strange by her mother’s absence. Her mother writes letters, in Korean, over the years seeking forgiveness and love―letters Eun Ji cannot fully understand until she finds them years later hidden in a box.
Habitat Threshold by Craig Santos Perez
With Habitat Threshold, Craig Santos Perez has crafted a timely collection of eco-poetry that explores his ancestry as a native Pacific Islander, the ecological plight of his homeland, and his fears for the future. The book begins with the birth of the author’s daughter, capturing her growth and childlike awe at the wonders of nature. As it progresses, Perez confronts the impacts of environmental injustice, the ravages of global capitalism, toxic waste, animal extinction, water rights, human violence, mass migration, and climate change. Throughout, he mourns lost habitats and species, and confronts his fears for the future world his daughter will inherit.
A Nail the Evening Hangs On by Monica Sok
Monica Sok illuminates the experiences of Cambodian diaspora and reflects on America’s role in escalating the genocide in Cambodia. A Nail the Evening Hangs On travels from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap, where Tuol Sleng and other war museums reshape the imagination of a child of refugees; to New York City and Lancaster, where the dailiness of intergenerational trauma persists on the subway or among the cornfields of a small hometown. Embracing collective memory, both real and imagined, these poems move across time to break familial silence. Sok pieces together voices and fragments—using persona, myth, and imagination—in a transformative work that builds towards wholeness.
This Is One Way to Dance by Sejal Shah
In the linked essays that make up her debut collection, This Is One Way to Dance, Sejal Shah explores culture, language, family, and place. Throughout the collection, Shah reflects on what it means to make oneself visible and legible through writing in a country that struggles with race and maps her identity as an American, South Asian American, writer of color, and feminist. Shah asks and attempts to answer the question: How do you move in such a way that loss does not limit you? This Is One Way to Dance introduces a vital new voice to the conversation about race and belonging in America.
Shahr-e-jaanaan: The City of the Beloved by Adeeba Shahid Talukder
Shahr-e-jaanaan sets out to recreate the universe of Urdu and Persian poetic tradition. As the speaker maps her romances onto legends, directing their characters perform her own tragedy, their fantastical metaphors easily lend themselves to her fluctuating mental state. Cycling between delirious grandeur and wretched despair, she is torn between two selves— the pitiable lover continually rejected, and the cruel, unattainable beloved comparable in her exaltation to a god.
Read an interview with the author here!
2020 Kundiman Retreat Update
We hope you and your family are safe and healthy during these difficult times.
We’ve made the difficult decision to cancel the 2020 Retreat, as Fordham University has canceled all summer conferences that require housing this year. While we understand this is the safest option, this is disappointing news for us, as we’re sure that it must be for our incoming fellows and faculty. We are grateful to everyone who shared their work with us by applying, as well as the fellows and faculty who carved out a week of their summer schedule to be with us. We are deferring our 2020 fellows to the 2021 Retreat and will later be in touch with what this means for applications next year. Meanwhile, we hope everyone stays safe and virtually in touch with our community. We are looking into new ways to stay connected to everyone, so stay tuned!
10 Asian American Poems of Protest to Read this April
Courtesy of Corky Lee/UCLA Labor Center
In celebration of National Poetry Month, we’ve curated a list of poems continuing along the theme of March 2020’s Poetry Coalition Project, I am deliberate and afraid of nothing: Poetry & Protest, based off the poem “New Year’s Day” by Audre Lorde.
This collection of writing speaks to how poetry can be used to provoke dialogue around the long-standing issues that have been present within our diverse Asian American communities, such as topics of immigration, gender, sexuality, politics, & many more.
Audre Lorde’s use of the word “deliberate” suggests intention–– these poems are not aimless in their fearlessness. They are poems that approach these particular issues through anger, through grief, through joy, through love & through loss. In light of spring 2020’s period of lockdown and isolation, we hope that these poems spark not only awareness, but also a sense of community, solidarity, & courage during difficult times. As Jess Rizkallah writes: “i was an animal in the heat / i was better than any son. / i could have easily escaped / but for once i wanted / to win.”
––Helli Fang, Spring Communications Intern ‘20
New Year’s Day by Audre Lorde
The day feels put together hastily
like a gift for grateful beggars
being better than no time at all
but the bells are ringing
in cities I have never visited
and my name is printed over doorways
I have never seen
While extracting a bone
or whatever is tender or fruitful
from the core of indifferent days
I have forgotten
the touch of sun
cutting through uncommitted mornings
The night is full of messages
I cannot read
I am too busy forgetting
air like fur on my tongue
and these tears
which do not come from sadness
but from grit in a sometimes wind
Rain falls like tar on my skin
my son picks up a chicken heart at dinner
asking
does this thing love?
Deft unmalicious fingers of ghosts
pluck over my dreaming
hiding whatever it is of sorrow
that would profit me
I am deliberate
and afraid
of nothing.
10 Asian American Poems of Protest to Read this April
from “Hades” by Aria Aber
Where did he go? I asked.
Where do the missing ever go?
Imagine silence, the tyrant, growing thick
over the casket lowered into the ground
from “Quarantine” by Franny Choi
Because I did not have to smell the cow’s fear,
because I did not have to pin the man, watch his eyes
go feral, because I did not have to drag the stones
that formed in the child’s body,
from “After Being Asked if I Write the “Occasional Poem” By Kimiko Hahn
After leaving Raxruhá, after
crossing Mexico with a coyote,
after reaching at midnight
that barren New Mexico border,
a man and his daughter
looked to Antelope Wells
for asylum and were arrested.
from “Aubade for Non-Citizens” by Lo Kwa Mei-en
Alien status, a blue bourgeouis dress, the hustle of Rome. A waltz—
zoom out—the citizen ingenue's cool, cool crinoline and persona
buckling in the silhouette the ahistorical hourglass.
from “[ ]” by Sahar Muradi
to retreat, move back
from a forward or threatened position
as in chess, a piece
to withdraw, leave
to remove or take away
as in love
from “One Vote” by Aimee Nezhukumatathil
My parents are from countries
where mangoes grow wild and bold
and eagles cry the sky in arcs and dips.
America loved this bird too and made
it clutch olives and arrows.
from “icarus puts on her make up” by Jess Rizkallah
i tied my hair into a ponytail
and when a strand on one side came loose
to frame my face, i felt beautiful
like an arab woman.
from “Check (Incantation Composed on the Occasion of Being Classified as Inadmissable)” by Patrick Rosal
Too
solemn Too here Too
there Too queer
In this era every world I enter
checks a passport And
every room is a world
from “Shooting for the Sky” by Purvi Shah
Survival
is more than instinct –– it is soul
prerogative –– a silver
spoon in a girl’s underwear.
from “Chinese Silence No. 22” by Timothy Yu
And when I say a wall,
I do not mean a wall of thousands of miles
that is visible from the moon.
Remembering Kimarlee Nguyen
Kimarlee reading at the Mentorship Lab Final Reading at Books Are Magic on December 11, 2019.
It is with great sadness that we share the loss of Kimarlee Nguyen, a dear member of our community & an inaugural Mentorship Fellow, who passed away on April 5, 2020 at age 33 due to complications from COVID-19. Kimarlee was a brilliant, unforgettable writer we are devastated to lose. She was one of three fiction writers in Kundiman’s first Mentorship Lab, which brought together nine emerging writers for an intensive six-month program. In her application letter, she spoke about the importance of community, and we count ourselves as lucky to have communed and shared space alongside her this past year. At the end of the program, we asked each writer to send in a testimonial about their time in the program. Kimarlee’s was especially representative of her generous, warm spirit and her devotion to community:
“I’m really bad at stuff like this — explaining in just a few sentences how a six-month fellowship has changed me. I can go on and on about things like community and confidence and representation, all things that Kundiman gave me in spades. But perhaps the most important thing this mentorship has given me is the belief that things can be different.
I came from an MFA program where the majority of my classmates either ignored my work or spent time ‘othering’ my narrative. I have only recently come to terms with how damaging that environment was to not only my writing but also to my own self-confidence.
People out there can be so cruel. But people can also be so kind, so loving and that’s what this mentorship has taught me. We writers do not need to be at each other’s throats, trying to one up the other in order to be some crazy version of ‘the best’ or ‘the most accomplished’. The Mentorship Lab is a space where all of us are fully ourselves, doing the hard work of creating and revising in a space that is safe, where all of us is seen, in all our genius and with all our flaws.” —Kimarlee Nguyen, December 2019
To honor Kimarlee, we’ve compiled a selection of her writing as well as remembrances from those who knew her. There is also a memorial fund for Kimarlee to assist her family with funeral costs; please consider donating if you can.
Kimarlee Nguyen and Monica Sok at the 2019 Kundiman Benefit. Photo by Jess X. Snow
Writing
Please join us in reading and remembering Kimarlee’s crucial voice and beautiful storytelling.
‘The Ear of the Sky’ in Hyphen Magazine:
“Underneath the blanket, bouncing off the window, her words crawl up my arm and circle his bowed head. She speaks in Pali, the old language. I can’t follow along, but the words bring with them the heat of summer, the smell of incense and the saffron robes the monks wore, all gathered in a line.”
‘We Gather Here’ in Adroit Journal:
Kimarlee Nguyen at the 2019 Asian American Literature Festival. Photo by Tommy Piantone.
I put in to my nose and I take a deep, long smell. The panties still smell like her – I flick out my tongue and taste the inside triangle of silk. Just a taste of salt and something deeper too. I move quietly, taking off my shorts and slipping into the panties one leg at a time.
‘And In Your Eyes, It Looks Like…” in Cha: An Asian Literary Journal:
You are thinking to yourself that once this is all over, you will never wear beige again. For fourteen years of your life, the same colour, all the time, except for those six months where you were free and the world was technicoloured, and you wore every colour you could think of.
‘If You Cut Me Open, Right Now, This Is What You’ll Find’ in Drunken Boat:
“Where life gets real hard and the winters here get so cold that I feel my bones breaking and everyone in the house is screaming about stupid things that won’t matter tomorrow, I tip my head back like this, right and remember me, all bruises and anger, leaning back, just holding the mango to my nose, smelling, smelling all the good that is yet to come.”
‘A Short Reminder of How History Works’ in Matador Review
Mentorship Lab Reading at Books are Magic
“When they came for her, she was busy packing a suitcase, something Ma told her to do, but like all girls who were straddling the line between teenager and adult, she didn’t think her Ma knew anything and waited until the square of light from the window was shadowed by the approaching iron-toed boots and hunched shoulders.”
‘Love Story’ in Cha: An Asian Literary Journal:
“You and I, on the edge of the seawall and I wanted to tremble in the radiance of the sun at its highest point in the sky. I would have said nothing and basked in the glory but you turned to me and told me to tell. So I did and I gave you the words for you to carry.”
‘This is a Story We All Know’ in Kartika Review:
“At school, our teachers would ask us if we were scared living where we lived, and we could only say, it’s home. Back then, we didn’t know a lot, but we knew what was and what wasn’t a secret.”
Memories
Pik-Shuen Fung & Kimarlee Nguyen.
Pik-Shuen Fung, Mentorship Fellow: "The first time I spoke to Kimarlee was at the Lit Fest in DC, and I had just signed with the same agent as her. We only got to talk for a few minutes, but Kim was so warm and generous with her advice. She said, What do we call each other now that we have the same agent? I laughed bc I thought she was joking, but she said she was serious, and then took a selfie to commemorate the moment. What I remember now is how she had this beautiful unconstrained quality about her, and how much she absolutely unabashedly loved selfies."
Bushra Rehman, Mentorship Lab Fiction Mentor: "Love you Kimarlee. Everyone’s talking about the ways you were light. You are. The light of the world has dimmed with your passing. I hope you joy in your journey. I feel you would want me to talk about your writing. It was what brought us together, so I will: From the moment I read your work, I knew you were special. Then I met you in person and realized you were a powerhouse of spirit and talent. I was lucky enough to be your writing mentor through Kundiman. We talked often about your dreams, your future and the book you were so close to finishing. We talked about how difficult it was to balance the writing life with the demands of New York City public school teaching, as much as we loved our students.
You knew something was shifting. You were feeling so excited about the future, about living a writer’s life. I was excited for you, knowing how amazing you and your work were. I don’t know how to hold these dreams now. It’s been part of the ripping heartache.
Kimarlee, light to you, your extraordinary story-telling, your unforgettable smile, your light and your charm."
Kundiman Mentorship Lab Fiction Group: Divya Nair, Kimarlee Nguyen, Shrima, & Bushra Rehman.
T Kira Madden, Mentorship Lab Creative Nonfiction Mentor: "Kimarlee Nguyen was and is an energy source that warms and deepens anyone lucky enough to share space with her, with her words. Just being near her, sitting next to her in a classroom, felt like a tremendous gift, an enlightening. I loved hearing about her students, about her artistic process; the way she described anything and everything from a square to a horse to her family was transcendent and indicative of a greater understanding. The literary community, and the world at large, will be lesser because of this physical loss, but her art and generosity of spirit will move through us, on and on."
2019 Mentorship Lab
Danielle Ola, Mentorship Fellow: "Over the past few days, I've found memories of Kimarlee in the most mundane places. In my morning coffee. In the ache of my shoulders. In a blinking cursor on a blank page. No matter how I try, they come to me in piecemeal. But I remember this: how Kimarlee would lift her chin whenever she spoke about her students, proud and reaching. How, within minutes of talking to her, it felt like I was missing home on the shoulder of an old friend. How she was always the first to remind us how precious we were to one another; how precious we were to her.
Kimarlee knew how special it was that we'd come to the Mentorship Lab and built a little family, one that knew how to hold each other in one moment and push forward in the next. In so many words, from the first reading to the last, she reminded us of this. We are so lucky we are to have one another. Be grateful.
You are so loved, Kimarlee. We're grateful for you."
Sulagna Sarkar, Student: "She wasn’t just a teacher, she wasn’t just another staff member. She was a role model, an influence, and a source of hope. Many of us students resorted to Ms. Nguyen to just talk. I remember once walking in when visiting her and although my friends and I would visit many of the teachers. My best friend had just been greeted with hugs joy laughter by Ms. Nguyen. She began to ask everything from how was the family, to how school was, to how he’s coping with anxiety, and not only did she do the same for me but she continued to ask us both such specific things to our life. It showed not only did she listen when we would go to her but she cared. So no, she wasn’t just a teacher. She was everything for a person that was struggling in our school. She was understanding and loving. She loved us all like her own children and she was loved, even if she didn’t know it, by ten times as many people because that’s just who she was. We will always love you Ms. Nguyen. Rest In Peace to a beautiful person both in and out."
Subarno, TBLS Class of 2004: "Ms. Nguyen was not only a teacher, she was a friend. At times I would feel so tired of the school environment and lose all motivation to work, but she kept me in check and made sure I not only was working but also having fun in the class. She was always so kind and made sure no one was ever upset or sad. We lost a teacher, a friend, a great person. The world will greatly miss your presence Ms. Nguyen. RIP."
Divya Nair, Mentorship Fellow: "Dear Kimarlee,
I wish the tears would flow from my eyes. Those are the tears that offer some catharsis, a fleeting lightness. But these are the tears that gush from the center of the spine, filling the ribcage to bursting -- a symptom of a particular grief
It is a rapacious grief, gulping up all the many orbiting, dormant, and subconscious sorrows of the heart, magnifying them in the context of this new reality.
This new reality no longer contains the corporeal you. Naps in parks on crisp fall days, hands clasped with an old friend but new love at a concert, a particular passion for lengthy train scenes in stories, sparkling eyes as you share warm and insightful wisdoms, a beautiful denim jumpsuit with hoop earrings, an eager anticipation of Cambodian Thanksgiving with family -- the kind of Thanksgiving that involves karaoke of course. These are the precious bits I remember of that you that is no longer here.
Nevertheless the celestial you persists in your stories -- potent, electric, important. They were stories that left those fortunate enough to behold them stripped naked, vulnerable, breathless.
And that's the crux of it all -- the power you wielded with your spirit and with your pen. This is what you leave for us -- fused tight upon itself into a North Star burning hot and wild in the liminal space separating our worlds.
No star can take your place but it will guide us as we wait to share your world again.
Love, Divya"
Paul Aster Stone-Tsao, Mentorship Fellow: "I remember when I first met you in DC at the Asian American Lit Fest. Exuberant. That's the word that first comes to mind.
I remember thinking to myself wow– what a beautiful person with such radiant energy. I was so excited that you were a fellow Kundiman fellow and that we'd get to spend time together the next couple months. I remember wanting to be pals with you almost immediately and was jabbering on about some nonsense because I wanted to talk to you more and was curious about who you were and how your trip to DC was as you were joining us from another writers' residency you had just wrapped with.
You were so gracious and kind and I will never forget the space you held for all of us and the way you held yourself– such power, grace, strength, and a tenderness so fierce it strikes me today in its lingering resonance, thrumming and gold– molten. It is warming my heart now, to hear the sonorous sweetness of your voice– the fearlessness with which you spoke your truth, how even the smallest blade of grass would sway to how it is your words would reach into the recesses of what most of us would turn away from but you faced it, and spoke. I heard you. We heard you. And are listening still. Truly, unforgettable.
It is and has been an honor to have been blessed enough to have witnessed you in your presence– to have gotten to share time and space and energy with you. Your being touched me entirely and you made a difference by simply being in the goddamn world, shining and dazzling absolutely everyone with your smile and the love you had for all of us lucky enough to have known you even if for a little while. I remember it to this day– how your smile, your laughter, your wit could light up an entire room even on the most tough days of working through hard and difficult matters of memory, trauma, emotional windstorms during our Kundiman workshops. You were a beacon of such hope and wisdom– and it continues to radiate even today as I write this.
My time shared with you is a gift I will cherish quite simply forever– in and through all the iterations of it– with and alongside the memory of you and how this memory perseveres on– giving to all of us, light.
You said that 'perhaps the most important thing this mentorship has given to me is the belief that things can be different'– and indeed, with you and the way you dared to touch the world back– they can.
My love to you Kimarlee, and to your family, loved ones, friends, colleagues, students, mentors– quite simply, all the people you touched in this living. I will miss you dearly. Thank you, for you."
2019 Mentorship Lab at the Kundiman Benefit.
A Poem for Kimarlee
by Paul Aster Stone-Tsao
4/07/20
...as a creek on a spring day/ when all the flowers/ still sing for you
I.
disguised as a coin
an angel tosses itself.
it lands somewhere in your hand.
you reach for a moment
and the glass at the tables' edge trembles.
under the creek, a birds' cry.
in your dreams tonight
a melody blooms
II.
that the tears/ tears
are flowing now
in more than one direction.
life still brims over
in the multiplicity of this folded moment.
"i love you" is a gesture
too, that gives toward how your memory could exceed itself
and continue in the invaginative
time of the Now, and live