The UCB Asian American Studies and the Asian Pacific American Student Development present
Date: January 28, 2006 Saturday 2:00pm
Event: Asian American Poets: Ed Bok Lee, author of Real Karaoke People, Barbara Jane Reyes, author of Poeta En San Francisco, Justin Chin, author of Attack Of The Man-Eating Lotus Blossoms
Hosted by Jeffrey Leong
Location: Heller Lounge, MLK Student Union, UC Berkeley (on Bancroft & Telegraph Ave.) cosponsored by Eastwind Books of Berkeley
Free Event, call (510) 548-2350 for more information
ASIAN AMERICAN POETS
ED BOK LEE : Real Karaoke People (New River Press)
A poet, fiction writer, playwright, and spoken word artist, Ed attended kindergarten in South Korea, grew up in North Dakota and Minnesota, and has since lived in a half-dozen cities around the world. A former state Grand Slam Poetry Champion, he regularly performs his spoken word poetry and writes for theaters across the country.
"Real Karaoke People takes the rich immigrant experience of our urban centers and gives it both a quiet grace and the energy of hip-hop. ‘What feeds your soul?’ the poet asks, and answers with the pungent smells of Asian cooking, off-key voices of karaoke, and a ‘girl's wicked drawl that first crackled through a KFC late-night drive-thru speaker.’ … one of the most impressive debuts in recent memory."David Mura, author of Turning Japanese
BARBARA JANE REYES : Poeta En San Francisco (Tinfish Press)
Barbara Jane Reyes is the author of Gravities of Center (Arkipelago, 2003), and Poeta en San Francisco, for which she won the 2005 James Laughlin Award from The Academy of American Poets.
"The US has been at war since its beginnings. And it has taken this to new levels in the last fifty or so years. In response, US poetry that matters has become one long, necessary lament. One could dismiss this as poets rhyming while Rome falls. But it makes more sense to see poetry as one of the places where the ravages of war--on the psyche, on the land, on the cultureare called out and called into question. Barbara Jane Reyes's poeta en san francisco is a necessary part of this emerging tradition of poetry. This book looks at what wars in the Philippines, Vietnam, Korea, Afghanistan, Iraq have done to the home front, to the city streets. It is a multilingual litany that forcefully articulates what it means to be living as a woman in a nation of veterans, virgins, and dark angels." --- Julianna Spahr, author of F*** You-Aloha-I Love You
JUSTIN CHIN : Attack of the Man-Eating Lotus Blossoms (Suspect Thoughts Press) is a collection of Chin’s performance works and several shorter works, from 1993-2001. These works explore themes of sexuality, of Asian and of queer bodies, hybrid forms of culture, belonging, and the loss, recovery, and reconstruction of home, homeland, and history. These works are by turns coolly ironic, or bratty and comic, or poignant and mournful, or unbelievably borderline psychotic. His other books are Harmless Medicine, Bite Hard, Burden of Ashes and Mongrel: Essays, Diatribes and Pranks. Harmless Medicine was a finalist at the 2002 Bay Area Book Awards, the Lambda Literary Awards, the Publishing Triangle Awards, and the Asian American Literary Awards.
JEFFREY THOMAS LEONG's poems have appeared in The Asian Pacific American Journal, and other publications. He received degrees in Asian American Studies and law at UC, Berkeley. For three years, he co-hosted Ohana Open Mic at the Pro Arts Gallery in Oakland.
Eastwind Books of Berkeley
2066 University Avenue
Berkeley, CA 94704 phone: 510 548-2350 fax: 510 548-3697 www.ewbb.com
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