Reading Kristin Chang’s work revives all the little things we lose: our names for nation. Yeye and his ghosts. Papaya in Taiyu meaning wood/melon. She doesn’t tackle, but instead deftly burrows into bodies of queerness, identity, immigration, and colonialism, a laundry list of tropes Chang has somehow resurrected and dissected in new, astonishing ways.
I know it’s selfish and absurd to suggest a book of this artistry might have been conceived just for me, but I swear I once begged the…
DESCRIPTION KSW Presents is curated by Michelle Lin and Kazumi Chin. KSW Presents “Mourn You Better: Feelings from the Queer Taiwanese & Chinese Diaspora”, a reading featuring Kristin Chang, Chen Chen, Yujane Chen, and Muriel Leung as they share poetry tracing queer immigrant landscapes of longing, loss, histories, futures, and desire. The title of this event comes Muriel Leung’s collection Bone Confetti. AND, check out KSW's latest Office Gallery exhibition "Kokoro" by Maya…
[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="1050"] Book of Cord coverage in World Journal, article by Emily Lin, book photography by Tinfish Press, family portrait by Andy Kuno[/caption] Leona Chen is the author of Book of Cord, her debut poetry collection from Tinfish Press. The poems tackle family, culture, language, migration and history in a non-prescriptive way, relying instead on emotions embedded in precise, culturally coded details--quotidian (but not ordinary) objects such as tiger balm,…
I call them the “Amy Tan Questions.”
Questions like “how do families relate in context of war, distance, and famine?” or “how does a child reconcile the old world of their parents with the new world America in which they live?”. These questions are important, for they are our foundation as a community and give us vignettes of Asian and Asian American history that American public schools neglected. But they are dated, and they are not our stories. I wanted to see writing that moved…
Performance poet Kelly Tsai shares this inspiring video poetry message dedicated to the 800K+ people who have served with AmeriCorps and the millions more who work every day to improve communities across the country. Kelly is an AmeriCorps Public Allies Alum, and this is a collaboration between her and fellow Americorps VISTA Alum, Ryan Hartley Smith. They based the characters and stories in the short on their own experiences and also those of dozens from across the country. Check it out.…
