"I should have left our names on that bridge."

May 16, 2023

Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month

Read poems by Asian/Pacific American poets reflecting on home and identity:

“Ghareeb” by Fatimah Asghar
“I Invite My Parents to a Dinner Party” by Chen Chen
“Los Angeles, Manila, Đà Nẵng” by Cathy Linh Che
“Page 65 / Riding the subway is an adventure” by Frances Chung
“Persimmons” by Li Young-Lee
“Kabira” by Rajiv Mohabir
“Care” by Craig Santos Perez
“Solstice in Llasa” by Wang Ping
“Migrant Earth” by Deema K. Shehabi
“Archipelagic” by R. A. Villanueva

Poetry: The Question of Home

“The reason why I keep writing is still the same: For me, it is the music of survival. There is an inner voice that speaks to me, makes music out of words, makes notes out of syllables, makes rhythms out of what words cannot reach.”

In honor of Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month, read “Poetry: The Question of Home” by Meena Alexander.

more at poets.org

“The poetry in Houston is not only vast, but it has depth. Like Houston’s hip-hop scene, the poetry in Houston is rooted in legendary acts, present and past.”

Read an interview with Emanuelee “Outspoken” Bean, 2022 Poet Laureate Fellow, on his project in Houston, Texas. Read more about Bean, including poems, on Poets.org:

“This Side Up”
“The Store Poem”
“lower cased shells at the capital”

more at poets.org

“I learned to see the elegy as a form of positive, communal remembrance. It’s not really a poem of grief so much as a poem of endurance, a restatement of communal values and commitments.”

Read our latest enjambments interview with Paisley Rekdal on her collection West: A Translation, published this month through Copper Canyon Press. Read more about Rekdal, including a selection of poems from the new collection:

“哀 / Sad”
“傳 / Pass”
“有識 / Have Knowledge”

more at poets.org

“Melancholy. Yeah, I think I’ve always been, even as a child... Adults in school used to use that word to describe me, and I didn’t always know what it meant; and not because I was a sad child, but I think I would go internal a lot, and why I look to poems that help me explore the internal world, and help me understand maybe the questions I might have about myself and about the world around me.”

This month’s Guest Editor, Hieu Minh Nguyen, is the author of Not Here (Coffee House Press, 2018). The recipient of fellowships from the Poetry Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts, Nguyen is a lecturer at Stanford University. Read and listen to a Q&A with Nguyen about his Poem-a-Day curatorial approach.

more at poets.org

#PoetryNearYou Pick of the Week

Join Texas Poet Laureate and 2022 Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellow Cyrus Cassells in honoring the winners of What Juneteenth Means (To Me), a poetry contest for Texas students in grades eight through twelve that encourages exploration of the events that make Juneteenth such a significant holiday. Saturday, May 20, at 10 a.m. CDT at the Neil-Cochran House Museum in Austin, Texas. Learn more. (Sponsored)

more at poets.org

Graywolf Press is seeking an editorial and administrative assistant.
GateWay Early College High School in Tempe, Arizona, is seeking a full-time English teacher for a one-year appointment, with possible renewal.
Greenlight Bookstore/Yours Truly, Brooklyn is seeking a full-time stationery store manager / buyer. Email a resume to jobs@greenlightbookstore.com.

Revisit last week’s Poem-a-Day selections with us on Poets.org:

May 7: “[A frail hepatica]” by Jun Fujita
May 8: “Amsterdam” by Safia Elhillo
May 9: “My Life Closed Twice” by Cameron Awkward-Rich
May 10: “Three Months Since” by Jade Cho
May 11: “Sidereal” by Debra Allbery
May 12: “Pedagogy” by Sam Sax
May 13: “Basanta Panchami” by Pankajini Basu

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AsianPacific American Heritage Month AsianPacific American poets Cathy Linh Che Craig Santos Perez Deema K Shehabi R A Villanueva lower cased shells The Store Poem

"I should have left our names on that bridge."

Poetry: The Question of Home

Key phrases

Older messages

"Evening" by Jeremy Radin

"My Mom’s Been Asking for a Happy Poem All My Life" by Jennifer Givhan

"Noon" by Harindranath Chattopadhyaya

"Basanta Panchami" by Pankajini Basu

"Pedagogy" by Sam Sax

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