leeherrick.wordpress.com

2009-09-28T23:25:00.000-07:00

I have a new blog : leeherrick.wordpress.com. Thanks for following me there.

Here Is a Pen: An Anthology of West Coast Kundiman Poets

2009-09-26T09:00:00.000-07:00

Neil Aitken, Tamiko Beyer, Ching-In Chen, Marilyn Chin, Oliver de la Paz, Vanessa Huang, Janine Joseph, Joseph O. Legaspi, Ngoc Luu, Sally Wen Mao, Noel Pabillo Mariano, Soham Patel, Jai Arun Ravine, Margaret Rhee, Melissa Roxas, Brynn Saito, Sharon Suzuki-Martinez, Yael Villafranca, Andre Yang, and Debbie Yee. Maybe the best seven dollars you'll spend all year --- Here Is a Pen: An Anthology of West Coast Kundiman Poets, available now from Achiote Press.

2009-09-19T14:58:00.001-07:00

I will be reading on The Blood-Jet Writing Hour on blogtalkradio with Host Rachelle Cruz on Friday, November 20, 2009 @ 10:00 a.m. I hope you can tune in. This fall's guests include Jayne Cortez, Kim Addonizio, Dorianne Laux, and others.

You in the Valley --- I will be reading and signing copies of my book at Reedley College on October 7 @ 1:00 p.m. Hope to see you. Maybe the premier issue of The Packinghouse Review will be there.

Kundiman - Achiote Press - PAWA Readings, Sept. 17 & Sept. 19

2009-09-16T21:24:00.000-07:00

This week there are two incredible readings in Berkeley and San Francisco on Sept. 17 & Sept. 19 --- poets include Joseph Legaspi, Oliver De La Paz, Ching-In Chen, Debbie Yee, Margaret Rhee, Neil Aitken, and Mari L'Esperance. This is what it's about. Go and enjoy.

2009-09-10T20:01:00.000-07:00

NPR calls Yours Truly, The Commuter "one the year's best albums," and you can hear some of it here: Jason Lytle performing live at the Bowery Ballroom in New York City on July 11, 2009. I've seen Grandaddy twice---once at Slim's in San Francisco and once in Modesto in a tiny bar. Here they are in NYC, one night after playing in Brooklyn. Great new album, Jason.

Michael Luis Medrano's Born in the Cavity of Sunsets Forthcoming from Bilingual Review Press

2009-09-02T15:30:00.000-07:00

Can't wait for this---available for pre-order now, due September 30, 2009 from Bilingual Review Press: Michael Luis Medrano's first collection of poems, Born in the Cavity of Sunsets. This press is the one that brought you Andres Montoya's the ice worker sings and other poems. I've respected Mike's poems for years and have looked forward to this book for a while now. Exciting to see it happening. Mike's got an MFA from the University of Minnesota, and he is the creator and co-host of the poetry radio program, Pakatelas, here in Fresno. His poems bristle with new images collaged with a rare visionary grit. I hope you'll check out the book.

"This collection is amazing. It soars, leaps, and also bows down to the earth and its dark bones. What I love about Medrano's work is his sincerity and his touching reach, his tender voices. . . . Medrano is ahead of his cadre. His reach is expansive." --- Juan Felipe Herrera, University of California, Riverside

2009-08-30T19:21:00.001-07:00

The Kundiman Poetry Prize, Published by Alice James Books. Emerging and established Asian American poets. Details and guidelines here.

Philip Levine Prize in Poetry

2009-08-27T16:11:00.000-07:00

Philip Levine Prize in Poetry

$2000 prize and publication by Anhinga Press
Final Judge: Garrett Hongo
Postmark Deadline: 9/30/09
Previous Winners: Shane Seely, Neil Aitken, Lynn Chandhok, Roxane Beth Johnson, Steve Gehrke, Fleda Brown.

Manuscript should be original poetry, not previously published in book form, 48- 80 pages, no more than one poem per page. Include two manuscript title pages: one with name and contact information and one with the name of the manuscript ONLY. Manuscripts are screened and judged anonymously. Multiple submissions are fine as long as the manuscript is withdrawn immediately upon its acceptance elsewhere. The entry fee is $25. Checks should be made out to “CSU Fresno Levine Prize.” Poets can submit more than one manuscript, but each will be considered a separate entry and must be accompanied by the $25 fee. More details here or e-mail Connie Hales at connieh@csufresno.edu. - Please post and/or distribute freely -

2009-08-23T14:19:00.001-07:00

Bao Phi is blogging for the Star Tribune---yet another reason to love Minneapolis.

2009-08-23T14:09:00.000-07:00

Loved The Nest reading in Oakland last week---APA & Latino Night---where Vickie, Kenji, Mai, Barbara, and Oscar gave powerful readings, surrounded by the latest art installation by Adia Millet. Can you identify the two poets in the last picture? Hint---Heaven Below and from unincorporated territory authors.

East Coast Readings

2009-08-19T21:19:00.001-07:00

If you're on the East Coast in November, I will be reading here in New York City on November 8 -- and in Boston on November 10 (time, location TBA). Hope to see you. You can see my fall California reading dates--Salinas, Riverside, San Francisco, San Luis Obispo, and Sacramento--here.

Barbara Jane Reyes at Harriet

2009-08-19T17:21:00.000-07:00

Barbara Jane Reyes is blogging at Harriet, the Poetry Foundation Blog.

A Letter from Ken Chen, Executive Director of the Asian American Writers' Workshop

2009-08-04T13:13:00.000-07:00

You're a reader, staying up past your bedtime, devouring stories and poems at a time when most Americans no longer read for fun. And you're a particularly uncommon reader--one who believes Asian Americans offer something unique to American culture. Like us, you believe in nurturing anyone who has a story to tell. We believe in showing every American, no matter what the color of her skin, that the Asian American story is a central chapter of the American story.We are asking you to invest in our efforts to build a national home for Asian American ideas.

This year, the Workshop faces a perfect storm that's left us fighting for our survival. While the recession has affected everyone, we were also hit with a lawsuit from our landlord, who sued to evict us for a more profitable tenant. We've successfully settled the suit, but just as the Workshop began as a grass-roots community of friends, we once again depend on you--the individual readers and writers who've made the Workshop what it is--to step in and nurture us.

Thank you,

Ken Chen
Executive Director

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To read a longer version of Ken's letter and to donate, please visit the Asian American Writers' Workshop today.

Sonya Chung's Long For This World

2009-07-31T06:08:00.000-07:00

There's a new novelist you will want to keep your eye on---Sonya Chung, author of Long for This World, due in March 2010 from Scribner. Visit her website and read about the novel (there are two excerpts), her thoughts on the book and the process of writing it and getting it published, as well as the interesting "How to Become a Writer: A Memoir." I'm excited about this one. Mark your calendars---March 2010.

New Poetry and Fiction at In the Grove

2009-07-27T18:13:00.001-07:00

Have you read the new story by Tim Z. Hernandez and the poems by Charles Hood and C. Dale Young? You can find them at In the Grove.

International Incheon Women Artists' Biennale, 8.1 through 8.31.2009

2009-07-25T13:19:00.000-07:00

2009-07-23T11:03:00.000-07:00

On October 17th, 7:15 pm I will be reading at Litcrawl, the last night of Litquake, San Francisco's Literary Festival (details and location to be announced soon at litquake.org). I am grateful to Camille Dungy for the invitation to be part of a reading for From the Fishouse, co-founded by Dungy and Matt O'Donnell. For a taste of how much there is to love about Dungy's work, I recommend "The Preachers Eat Out" and "Requiem" as good entry points. For a good night of poetry and socializing, I recommend Litcrawl in October. Hope to see you.

Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Arrested -- This is Wrong

2009-07-20T12:53:00.000-07:00

I was disturbed to read about Henry Louis Gates, Jr.'s arrest last week in Cambridge, Masschussetts. At 12:44 p.m. in the afternoon, a woman named Lucia Whalen called the Cambridge Police Department to report a break-in. Gates Jr. -- for those who do not know -- is one of the nation's pre-eminent historians and scholars. A professor at Harvard University, he had locked himself out of his home and was trying to get in. When the officers arrived, Gates Jr., who is African-American, was understandably bothered at being harassed at his own home, in his own neighborhood, on his own property. The officers handcuffed him and took him to the police station. You read can an article about the incident here, and in the article you can also read the police report, which is enlightening. He states the officer may be racist (would Malcolm Gladwell or Margaret Atwood have been handcuffed and arrested, much less even reported as a potential burglar?), but by all accounts he is neither belligerent nor incorrect in his reading of the situation. Too many of these incidents still occur---and too many voices, unfortunately, do not comprehend the person's outrage, and by that lack of comprehension and the dismissal or mockery of it, they only make matters worse.

Title for the second book manuscript

2009-07-15T13:56:00.000-07:00

I've found the title of my second manuscript: Bone Echo. I'm relieved and excited about it. I'd like your feedback, whether it appeals to you or not. I'd thought for several months that the title would include the word "acoustic" or "acoustics," as some of you may recall. I appreciate the e-mails and comments I received about the possible titles. But it wasn't happening.

Last night, during a great conversation with a friend whose creative spirit and energy is among the most expansive I've ever known, we were talking about poetry and poets, bookstores and books. We'd talked about book titles before, and last night it came up again. I explained what I liked about the word "acoustic" but why it wasn't working in the title. I won't explain the details of the conversation, but the result was that in some strange moment of synchronicity, we arrived at a title at the same time---she said it out loud, "How about 'Bone Echo'?" --at the exact moment I thought to myself, "Bone Echo." It captures much of the second manuscript's direction thus far---poems about certainty, the body, foundations, simplicity, one's own voice, and resonance or reverberation. There is a certainty or finality in many of the poems, including the more expansive series of poems I've been writing as of late: poems like "Gardening Secrets of the Dead," "Fire," and the new one, "Eschara." At any rate, I'll let this simmer for a while, but I like it quite a bit. Your two cents are welcome.

2009 Philip Levine Poetry Book Prize

2009-07-14T14:06:00.000-07:00

$2000 prize and publication by Anhinga Press, Final Judge: Garrett Hongo

Postmark Deadline: 9/30/09. Previous Winners: Shane Seely, Neil Aitken, Lynn Chandhok, Roxane Beth Johnson, Steve Gehrke, Fleda Brown.

Guidelines and more details here.

Historic step for adoptee rights, adoptees urge full inclusion in adoption law revision process

2009-07-02T12:06:00.001-07:00

Visit my new blog here.

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PRESS RELEASE, from TRACK

Historic step for adoptee rights, adoptees urge full inclusion in adoption law revision process

Seoul, July 1, 2009 (TRACK) – Fifty overseas Korean adoptees and their allies participated in the second public hearing on the revision of South Korea’s civil and overseas adoption laws Wednesday at the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Family’s second public hearing sponsored by the Korean Women’s Development Institute (KWDI). The discussion marked the first time in 56 years of international Korean adoption that overseas Korean adoptees represented their own interests in a governmental forum.

The ministry is revising both the laws on domestic adoption and intercountry adoption, called the “Special Adoption Law,” which has been amended nine times since its enactment in 1961, each time without adoptees or birth families as shareholders.

Adoptees were able to participate because professional simultaneous translation was provided by KWDI. The first public hearing held Feb. 26 did not include professional translation despite requests made by Truth and Reconciliation for the Adoption Community of Korea (TRACK), a nonprofit organization aimed at healing the relationship between adoptees and Korean society. The language barrier prevented 30 adoptees and supporters from speaking about the proposed law revisions.

Jane Jeong Trenka, president of TRACK, saw the provision of professional translation this time as a step in the right direction, but recommended that translation into both English and French be institutionalized by the government. “Any fair, democratic process on adoption law, as well as any just and humane adoption and social welfare policy about us must include us,” Trenka said. “We need translation every time. The adoptees did not create the language barrier.”

During the hearing’s open discussion, seven adoptees and supporters addressed Professor Huh Nam-Soon of Hallym University who leads the ministry’s research committee. Adoptees asked how the central authority will help them gain better access to their files, histories and original identities and questioned its objectivity. They also criticized the government for not creating a comprehensive social welfare system and for failing to include adoptees and single mothers in the creation, development, and discussion of the revisions.

Professors and professionals monitoring the law revisions process from overseas said in a solidarity statement read by TRACK, “We urge Korea to include the adoptees’ and mothers’ voices as equal partners in the creation, development, and discussion about Korea’s new adoption law.”

This public hearing was originally intended to be the last one before the ministry sends its suggested revisions to the adoption law to the National Assembly. However, after seeing the number of adoptees and supporters who turned out to voice their opinions, Park Sook-ja, director of the department in charge of adoptions within the ministry, announced that another public hearing might be necessary to further discuss adoptee and single mother concerns.

Since the 1950s, South Korea has sent away the largest number of children for international adoption in the world, with over 160,000 Korean children ending up in mainly 14 Western countries, according to government data. Although it is the longest-running international adoption program in the world, the country is not yet in compliance with international standards. It has yet to ratify the 1993 Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoption and holds reservations to the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Truth and Reconciliation for the Adoption Community of Korea (TRACK) is a nonprofit organization that advocates for a full understanding of the practice of adoption, both past and present, to improve the human rights of children and families affected by adoption.

Contact:

Jane Jeong Trenka, president

Truth and Reconciliation for the Adoption Community of Korea (TRACK)

010-2614-0294 (English)

http://justicespeaking.wordpress.com/

******

This is the letter, on which I was one of the signatories, that was read at the hearing:

Dear Committee Members:

Throughout the years, many overseas adoptees in the global Korean
adoptee diaspora have fought to make the voices of adoptees visible in
adoption research and politics. This continuous struggle has always
taken place in cooperation with an international community of adoptees
and allies in many different countries. This struggle is global and is
not limited to the returnee adoptees in Korea. We hereby want to
express our deepest gratitude to all the adoptees who are present at
today's hearing to fight for the rights of the adoptees and birth
parents who are the most vulnerable parts of the adoption world.

We hope that the Korean government will listen to those whose lives
were completely changed through Korea's adoption system. We urge Korea
to include the adoptee and mothers' voices as equal partners in the
creation, development, and discussion about Korea's new adoption law.

Signed:

Dr. Tobias Hübinette, member of Adopted Koreans' Association of Sweden
and a critical adoption scholar

Dr. Jennifer Kwon Dobbs, member of AK Connection of Minneapolis,
assistant professor St. Olaf College

Dr. Eli Park Sorenson, Professor Kyunghee University and research
fellow at Cambridge University

Dr. Kim Su Rasmussen, Professor Seoul National University

Dr. Kim Park Nelson, member of AKConnection of Minneapolis, assistant
professor at Minnesota State University at Moorhead

Dr. Stefan Liess, University of Minnesota

Ms. Jae Ran Kim, MSW, LGSW. Adoption professional and doctoral student
at the University of Minnesota School of Social Work

Dr. Sarah Park, assistant professor at St Catherine University

Ms. Malena Swanson, member of Adopted Korean Association of Sweden,
LLM and lawyer

Mr. Jens Falk, M.D., Sweden

Mr. Lee Herrick, Professor of English, Fresno City College, California

Ms. Jane Jin Kaisen, visual artist and graduate student at UCLA, California

New Blog

2009-05-30T14:51:00.000-07:00

I've started a new blog HERE (I posted a draft of another new poem, "Fire," which will stay up until Wednesday). I will be freewriting on my writing process this summer, hopefully making real headway on my second manuscript. Please visit me there.
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My fall reading calendar is filling up with two more invitations---Hartnell College, Salinas, CA (September 24) and a feature spot at the San Luis Obispo Poetry Festival (November 14). Hope you can make it.

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Writing Workshops With Kim Sunée in Florida

2009-05-29T11:09:00.000-07:00

My good friend and best-selling author of Trail of Crumbs, Kim Sunée, will be teaching two workshops in Florida, one from the June 22 to June 26, and the other from June 29 to July 3. For more details, visit her website at kimsunée.com.

June 29th - July 3rd, 2009 :
Eating Our Words, Cooking and Creative Writing Class with Kim Sunee and a guest chef!
Come join KIM SUNEE, author of the national bestseller, TRAIL OF CRUMBS and a guest chef for cooking classes and writing you life through food and travel. In this creavitve writing workshop, you'll learn how to focus your life stories, and use the nuances of plot, character, setting, theme, and dialogue to drive the narrative of your story. 9:30-12:00 & 2:00-4:30 every day. Maximum 10 writers. Fee : $700.00. Includes individual evaluation, group workshop sessions, & hand-outs.

Congratulations to Ken Chen, Recipient of the 2009 Yale Series of Younger Poets Award

2009-05-26T16:39:00.000-07:00

I could not be happier for Ken Chen (pictured, left), who was just named the 2009 recipient of the Yale Series of Younger Poets Award. His book, Juvenilia, will come out soon, and I can't wait for it. I met Ken last year when I read with Kim Sunée and Jennifer Kwon Dobbs at the Asian American Writers' Workshop, where he serves as Executive Director. This could not have happened to a nicer person, and I hope you will all buy the book when it arrives.

Ken Chen is the Executive Director of The Asian American Writers’ Workshop. He is the 2009 recipient of the Yale Series of Younger Poets Award. His work has been published in Best American Essays 2006 and was recently recognized in Best American Essays 2007. He started Satellite: The Berkeley Magazine of News + Culture and also helped found Arts & Letters Daily, a cultural website.

Summer Writing and Reading

2009-05-25T14:50:00.001-07:00

Now that summer is here, I am hoping my writing picks up a bit. I've also got three somewhat time-consuming things behind me: two Guest Editor stints, one for the Rio Grande Review and one for Asian American Poetry and Writing (both issues are out soon; RGR is already up online)--and my full-time job, teaching at Fresno City College. This semester I had great students, so it was a pleasure, really. But now that grades are in and summer is here, for all intents and purposes, I am looking forward to writing more. What always gets me motivated to write is to read, and so I am delving into some poetry collections I've been wanting to crack open---Linda Gregg's All of It Singing, most notably. Other books I have waiting for me include: Christopher Buckley's Sky, Charles Baudelaire's The Flowers of Paris and Evil Spleen, and two of the many books owned by my recently passed on grandmother: a first edition hardback (1938) of Thomas Mann's The Coming Victory of Democracy and Franz Kafka's Diaries 1914-1923.

I am also trying to work through titles for my second manuscript. I want the word "acoustics" in it, and the one I'm thinking about now is All the City's Acoustics. What do you think of it? I know you haven't read the poems, but as a title alone, I like the sound of it. I think of Patricia Smith's response to the question about Blood Dazzler, where she simply said she just likes the way it rolls off her tongue. I've also thought of All This City's Acoustics (slight variation on the first), Han Acoustics, and Acoustic You. I have a feeling none of these will eventually be the title, for some reason. I wish something would come to me like This Many Miles from Desire did---that title came to me very early, and it never left.

from Oliver De La Paz, I learned about this

2009-05-24T18:32:00.001-07:00

SURFACE FILIPINO-AMERICAN ACTIVIST MELISSA ROXAS NOW

BAYAN-USA, an alliance of 14 Filipino American organizations and chapter of Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan Philippines), is calling on President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, the Department of National Defense, and the Armed Forces of the Philippines to immediately surface Melissa Roxas, an American citizen of Filipino descent who was abducted in the Philippines on May 19. BAYAN-USA also urgently calls on our representatives in the U.S. Congress to act quickly to ensure the safe return of Roxas.

Dual Citizenship for Korean Adoptees

2009-05-21T07:59:00.000-07:00

Please forward the following press release from G.O.A.'L, whose commitment and hard work has resulted in a remarkable development: dual citizenship opportunities for Korean Adoptees. There are no words to express the gratitude I feel for G.O.A.'L. The press release is below.

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International Press Release FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Dae-won Wenger, Secretary General
Phone: +82 2 325 6585
Email: sg@goal.or.kr
http://www.goal.or.kr

Multiple Citizenship for Korean Adoptees!

G.O.A.’L welcomes suggested law proposal by Ministry of Justice

Seoul, 21st May 2009 – One year ago Global Overseas Adoptees’ Link (G.O.A.’L) launched its worldwide “Dual Citizenship Campaign”. G.O.A.’L is the only NGO/NPO in Korea that is run by Korean adoptees. It represents the worldwide Korean adoptee community within Korea. Since then G.O.A.’L has been in close contact with the Ministry of Justice (MoJ). On behalf of the MoJ G.O.A.’L conducted a survey among Korean adoptees and adoptive parents which proved a strong consensus that multiple citizenship should be allowed for Korean adoptees (239 participants, thereof 97% with positive attitude). On 22nd July 2008 G.O.A.’L was invited to represent the worldwide Korean adoptee community at a public hearing organized by the MoJ.

G.O.A.’L welcomes the announcement by the MoJ to include Korean adoptees into the category of those who could benefit from the suggested law proposal. Many Korean adoptees will appreciate this change of system from a single citizenship to a multiple citizenship one. Korean adoptees represent Korea as true “Global Koreans” in many ways, in their adoptive countries or in countries they choose to live in.

The suggested law proposal leaves some issues open for discussion. Military service is among the most important ones. Others are that Korean adoptees with multiple citizenships would not be eligible for any special quotas for foreigners at universities or at international schools, for example. Or it would not be possible to apply for a government scholarship that is assigned for foreigners. Within Korea those who reacquire their Korean citizenship would be treated just like any other Korean citizen.

Nevertheless G.O.A.’L believes that giving Korean adoptees a choice to reacquire their original Korean citizenship, which they never chose to give up in the first place, is a very important step towards recognizing Korean adoptees as what they are, as “Global Koreans” and as citizens of their adoptive countries.

The MoJ announced in its press release of today a public hearing for June 2009 with participation from all interested parties. The suggested law proposal will then be submitted to the National Assembly in July 2009 where it should be passed within one of the regular sessions.

G.O.A.’L would like to express its gratitude to the Ministry of Justice for considering the adoptee community’s point of view. G.O.A.’L would also like to thank its special advisor, Professor Lee Chul-woo (Yonsei University, Law School), for all his efforts on behalf of the worldwide Korean adoptee community. G.O.A.’L will continue to work on behalf of all Korean adoptees. This future law change will prove important not only for all Korean adoptees but also for all other international adoptees.

###

In case you have any questions or would like to schedule an interview, please contact our office at
+82 2 325-6585 or send an email to sg@goal.or.kr

Global Overseas Adoptees’ Link (G.O.A.'L)
“The adoptee organization in Korea run by adoptees since 1998”
KPO Box 1364, Seoul 110-613, Korea
Phone: 82-2-325-6585 • Fax: 82-2-325-6570 • Website: www.goal.or.kr

Zee Avi

2009-05-20T05:11:00.000-07:00

Jason Lytle's Yours Truly, The Commuter

2009-05-17T10:46:00.000-07:00

Jason Lytle, former frontman for the great band Grandaddy, has his first solo record coming out on May 19. I've missed hearing new music from Jason after the band's 2006 breakup, but he comes back strong with Yours Truly, The Commuter. You can hear the entire album on NPR.

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Yesterday's reading in Modesto was very nice, and it was good to share the stage with my friend, Modesto poet Gillian Wegener. It was nice to see some friends there, too---Stella B., Joe O., Monique (whom I hadn't seen in over ten years), Sharon (my friend's mother whom I hadn't seen in fifteen years), and even N.J. Barr, my senior year high school English teacher. I got to tell Barr, twenty years after graduating, how much she influenced me. It meant a lot to have such a warm audience there, so thank you all for coming. Thanks to Gillian and Cleo for their work in arranging the reading. The room and its acoustics made for a great environment. Viva Modesto!

A partial setlist of the new poems I read:

Spectral Questions of the Body
Kwi Ch'on
If We Are What We Eat
Gardening Secrets of the Dead
My California
Freedom

2009-05-15T06:00:00.000-07:00

My oldest, closest friend is in India for three months. I've known him since we were about eight years old, and we've stayed in touch off and on over the years, except for some time in high school and then when he went to UC Berkeley. For the last ten years or so, there's rarely a week when we don't talk. Now he's a professor in northern California, living the good life. He's also one of the best guitarists around and has played in some pretty successful punk bands. Here is a video he made, an acoustic collage. Hope you enjoy it. Safe and fun travels, Op.

Happy Asian-Pacific American Heritage Month!

2009-05-11T16:34:00.001-07:00

Roll Call: A Partial List of APAI Inspirations (to be read in the voice of Senior Love Daddy, from "Do the Right Thing"):

Kang Sok Kyong, So Chong Ju, Ko Un, Maxine Hong Kingston, Kim Ronyoung, Hisaye Yamamoto, Ch'on Sang Pyong, Lawson Fusao Inada, Genny Lim, Amy Uyematsu, Garrett Hongo, Vince Gotera, Duong Thu Huong, Shirley Geok-Lim, John Yau, Myung Mi Kim, Amy Tan, Lois Ann Yamanaka, Jessica Hagedorn, Al Robles, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, David Mura, Li Young Lee, Arthur Sze, Nick Carbo, Kimiko Hahn, Timothy Liu, Mei-Mei Berssenbrugge, Ai, Agha Shahid Ali, Sesshu Foster, Marilyn Chin, Carlos Bulosan, Kim Young Ha, Jane Jeong Trenka, Sun Yung Shin, Jennifer Kwon Dobbs, Kim Park Nelson, Ed Bok Lee, Ishle Yi Park, Arundhati Roy, Suh Ji-Moon, Tina Chang, Oliver de la Paz, Jon Pineda, Rick Barot, Sasha Pimentel Chacon, Andre Yang, Burlee Vang, Soul Vang, Pos Moua, Bryan Thao Worra, Sun Mee Chomet, Nicky Schildkraut, Anyssa Kim, Casey Kwang, David Mas Masumoto, Mike Maniquiz, Russell Leong, Barbara Jane Reyes, Craig Santos Perez, Koon Woon, Patrick Rosal, Victoria Chang, Kazim Ali, Eileen Tabios, Maja Lee Langvard, Tobias Hubinette, Kim Sunée, Paisley Rekdal, Sandy Tseng, Esther Lee, Lee Ann Roripaugh, Kim Ki-Taek, Aimee Suzara, Neil Aitken, Ruby Veridiano-Ching, Adriel Luis, Alvin Lau, Denizen Kane, Beau Sia, Chang Rae Lee, Yiyun Lee, Cathy Park Hong, Lee Herrick, Barbara Tran, Ling Dinh, Alexander Chee, HyunJin, Sueyeun Juliette Lee, Ky Phong Paul Tran, Thomas Marco Blatt, Katie Leo, Beth Kyong Lo, Bao Phi, Shin Yu Pai, Ivy Alvarez, Pacyinz Lyoung, Ching-In Chen, Debbie Yee, Joseph Legaspi, Kao Kalia Yang, Luong Ung, Helen Zia, Gao Xingjian, Bei Dao, Patricia Wakida, Louis Chu, Frank Chin, Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, Leonard Chang, Philip Kan Gotanda, Nora Ojka Keller, Eileen Tabios, Elaine Kim, Jo Rankin, Genny Lim, Janice Mirikitani, Aimee Nezhukumatahil, Sarah Gambito, Ronald Takaki, Wayne Wang, Justin Lin, The Guy Who Directed "OldBoy," Margaret Cho, Ang Lee, Sandra Oh, Lucy Liu, Cibo Matto, Norah Jones, Denis Sung Ho, Michael Kang, Eric Byler, Tammy Chu, Deann Borshay Liem, Mike Park, The Ahn Trio sisters, Phil Yu, Thao Ngyuen, James Iha, Susie Suh, Justin Lin, Maya Lin, Helen Zia, Yao Ming, Dat Nguyen, Amy Anderson, John Cho, Kal Penn, and Michelle Yeoh...to be continued.

2009-05-07T16:13:00.000-07:00

JUSTICE FOR FONG LEE

This is from Bao Phi, poet and author of Refugeography:

Fong Lee was a 19 year old Hmong man who was shot to death by a Minneapolis police officer who was given a Medal of Valor for killing him. The reasons why the police officers approached Fong Lee in the first place strongly suggests racial profiling. The police sped across the playground in their cruiser and rammed Fong Lee's bicycle, causing him to fall from it. Fong Lee ran from the officers, and Officer Jason Anderson evidently shot him three times in the back as he ran away, then five more times in the chest as he lay on the ground.

The officer claims that Fong Lee had a gun in his hand. There are numerous discrepancies here. Watching the video, there is no gun in Fong Lee's possession. There was no fingerprints or DNA from Fong Lee on the gun, and the gun itself was traced back - to the possession of the Minneapolis Police Department itself. The community had long alleged that the officers planted the gun to justify the murder of Fong Lee.

Well, it looks like the judge threw out many of the claims:

A lot of community folks and family members have been working hard on bringing this case to light, and there will be a rally this Monday. Please come and support, and spread the word far and wide.

-Bao Phi

Rally for Justice For the Family of Fong Lee

Join us on Monday, May 11, 2009

8:45 – 9:45 am

Warren E. Burger Federal Building & United States Courthouse
316 North Robert Street
100 Federal Building
St. Paul, MN 55101

On Monday, the family of Fong Lee will be meeting with Minneapolis City Council members to negotiate a settlement in the shooting of their son and brother. We will stand in support of the family, and ask for an Independent Prosecutor to investigate this death. We will also be demanding additional changes in policy in the City of Minneapolis to make it a safer place for people to live.

The Police Force should represent Protection for our communities, not Peril!

It’s time to make things right!

Places to park:
1) Meet at Lao Family at 8:00 am and take a chartered bus to the Courthouse.
Lao Family Community of Minnesota, Inc.
320 W. University Avenue
St. Paul, MN 55103
2) Meet at Joseph’s Grill at 8:00 am and march with others across the Robert Street bridge to the Courthouse.
140 Wabasha St S
St Paul, MN 55107
3) There are also meters on the street and parking ramps in downtown St. Paul.

************************

Anthology of Hmong American Literature

Call for Submissions:

The Hmong American Writers’ Circle (HAWC) in association with Heyday Books will publish an anthology of literary writing focused on the Hmong American experience, specifically on the connection to the Central Valley, its land and people. A section of the anthology will include original artwork/photography.

Deadline to submit: August 31, 2009

Guidelines:

Topics: experiences involving Hmong/Hmong Americans in the Central Valley
Accepted genres: poetry, fiction, creative non-fiction, plays
Format: Microsoft Word, size 12, Times New Roman font (should you be sending pieces that require you to vary sizes and font styles, please email your concerns prior to submitting, to: HawcSubmissions@gmail.com)
Previously published pieces accepted (please ensure you have rights to reprint)
Simultaneous submissions accepted
Publication in this anthology is not limited to only Hmong American writers
Pieces written in Hmong accompanied with an English translation are welcomed

Submissions:

Submissions in multiple genres welcomed
3-5 poems, 1-3 pieces of fiction, 1-3 pieces of creative non-fiction, or 1-3 plays
Only email submissions accepted, please send your submissions to: HawcSubmissions@gmail.com
Include a cover letter discussing your background (include any experiences as or with Hmong/Hmong Americans in the Central Valley), and literary accomplishments or publications (if applicable); cover letters should include name, address, phone number and email

Contact Information - HawcSubmissions@gmail.com
Website - http://hawcircle.blogspot.com

2009-05-04T20:18:00.000-07:00

If you didn't know, I am a sports fan. I grew up playing every sport imaginable as a child in the East Bay and later Modesto, California, and eventually focused my energies and love on soccer, a beautiful art of the world, and I kept playing at the university and on club teams after college. A few recent blog posts (by Barbara Jane Reyes and Patrick Rosal, specifically) in the poetry world have got me thinking about boxing and its intersection with poets and writers. I didn't watch the Pacquiao fight, and I don't follow boxing as much as I used to, but I've heard Manny is the real deal. I got to thinking about the fights I watched in the 1980's---Sugar Ray Leonard versus Roberto Duran, Muhammad Ali versus Larry Holmes, and the best fight ever---Tommy "Hit Man" Hearns versus "Marvelous" Marvin Hagler. Any boxing fan has to have that fight on his or her list of top five boxing matches in history. Later, in the 1990's, I saw many of Mike Tyson's fights, those explosive and punishing fights that often ended within a few minutes (remember what he did to Michael Spinks?).

And so I remembered one of the best essays on boxing I have ever read, June Jordan's "Requiem for the Champ," about Mike Tyson's upbringing and our hyper-masculine media/ violent culture. I remembered (none other than) Joyce Carol Oates' sincere love for boxing, which she got from her father, and her acclaimed book, On Boxing. I remembered one of my favorite new poets, Kevin A. Gonzalez, and his poem, "The Night Tito Trinidad KO'ed Richard Mayorga," which he calls a political poem, but does not refer in depth to the actual fight.

And there's Philip Levine. He has one of the best blurbs I've read, on the back of What Will Suffice: Contemporary Poets on the Art of Poetry, a great book of Ars Poeticas from Agha Shahid Ali, John Ashbery, Rita Dove, Peter Everwine, Garrett Hongo, Yusef Komunyakaa, Ann Lauterbach, Juan Felipe Herrera, Larry Levis, and Naomi Shiab Nye, and dozens of others.

Levine writes:

"Did Ray Robinson have a vision of why boxing mattered and a notion of how it should be practiced? I would doubt it, although after a time I'm sure he knew from experience it required the best his mind and body could give, and I'm sure he worked very hard so they could give their best. The night he took the middleweight title from Jake LaMotta he must have known that all his work and his talent had come together at the perfect moment, and he was the greatest fighter in the world: he knew all there was about his art, and he acted on that knowledge. Such is the nature of genius.

I live in a different world, perhaps the same world grass lives in, and at certain times I grow and green without the least notion of why one day is different than another. Afterwards I'm amazed at what I've done and feel victorious without having defeated anything or anyone. The next morning I'm in the dark working without the least confidence I know anything useful or final about the making of poems."

Coming Soon! A Special Issue of Korean-born Poets and Writers, Guest Edited by Lee Herrick

2009-04-25T17:04:00.000-07:00

COMING SOON!

In May/June 2009, Asian American Poetry and Writing, based in Los Angeles, will publish a special online issue of Korean born writers adopted and living overseas. I was invited to Guest Edit this issue, and to say it was an honor is a tremendous understatement. My deepest gratitude goes to Ky-Phong Paul Tran for this wonderful opportunity. I have gathered thirteen writers, eleven of them adopted and now living in the United States, one adopted and now living in Norway, and one adopted now living in South Korea. The cover art is by artist JooYoung Choi, born in Korea and now living in Massachusetts.

This issue of all creative writing is not the first of its kind, but it is indeed one of the first in around ten years. Many of the writers I have included have garnered national and international acclaim, and I am proud to introduce several new writers whose work has never before been published. I have been working on the issue for well over six months, and I am excited that it is currently in the layout process. The fantastic editor at Asian American Poetry and Writing tells me it will be complete in about a month, late May or early June.

In addition to a generous sampling from each of the thirteen writers, the issue will feature three authors: Jane Jeong Trenka, Sun Yung Shin, and Jennifer Kwon Dobbs. I am thrilled that the issue will publish, for the first time in print, an excerpt from Jane Jeong Trenka’s highly anticipated memoir, Fugitive Visions (forthcoming from Graywolf Press in June 2009), the follow-up to The Language of Blood. Also, the issue will feature new, breathtaking poems from Dobbs and Shin. Over the winter of 2008, I asked Trenka, Shin, and Dobbs to correspond over e-mail and ruminate on questions of their writing process, history, community, and Korea. The result is an eye-opening and inspiring conversation (of over twenty pages) between three of the best writers at work today. This conversation will be in the issue as well, and I guarantee you—you won’t want to miss it.

Please keep an eye out for its publication. Spread the word, please. The quality of writing, the variation of experience and aesthetics, and the depth of spirit in the writers’ work will astonish you. Individually, the writers are treasures. Collectively, they represent a gorgeous and vital voice.

The issue will include:

Poetry:

Thomas Marco Blatt
Emily Han-Young Hurd
Anyssa Kim
Jennifer Kwon Dobbs
Katie Leo
Beth Kyong Lo
Nicky Schildkraut
Sun Yung Shin
Leah Silvieus
Kim Sunée

Creative Nonfiction:

HyunJin

Play (excerpt):

Sun Mee Chomet

Memoir (excerpt):

Jane Jeong Trenka

(Pre-order Fugitive Visions here)

2009-04-25T15:14:00.000-07:00

Robert Vasquez, David Dominguez, and Francisco Aragón
Friday, May 1, 2009 at 7:00 pm, College of of the Sequoias
Visalia, California -- should be a great reading.

Gillian Wegener and Lee Herrick Poetry Reading

2009-04-24T06:53:00.000-07:00

Gillian Wegener and Lee Herrick will present a free poetry reading at the McHenry Museum, 1402 "I" St., Modesto, May 16 at 1 p.m. Light refreshments will be served.

Gillian Wegener is the author of The Opposite of Clairvoyance, published by Sixteen Rivers Press in 2008. She's had poems published in numerous journals, including Runes, americas review, Quercus Review, and In the Grove. A chapbook, Lifting One Foot, Lifting the Other was published by In the Grove Press in 2001, and she was awarded top prizes by the Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Foundation for 2006 and 2007. Wegener works as a junior high English teacher in California's Central Valley. She lives with her husband and daughter in Modesto.

Lee Herrick is the author of This Many Miles from Desire (WordTech Editions, 2007). He was born in Daejeon, Korea and adopted at ten months. His poems have been published in ZYZZYVA, Berkeley Poetry Review, Hawaii Pacific Review, MiPoesias, and The Bloomsbury Review, among others, and in anthologies such as Seeds from a Silent Tree: An Anthology of Korean Adoptees, Hurricane Blues: Poems About Katrina and Rita, and Highway 99: A Literary Journey through California's Great Central Valley, 2nd Edition. He is the founding editor of In the Grove and teaches at Fresno City College.

For more information: Gillian Wegener, wegenerspage@yahoo.com or Cleo Griffith, (209) 543-1776

Mitch Hedberg

2009-04-22T19:12:00.001-07:00

One of my loves is stand-up comedy. I love live performances -- theater, music, sports, poetry. I have seen a handful of stand-up comedians over the years -- Zack Galifinakis, Amy Anderson, Jerry Seinfeld, and others. But I never saw Mitch Hedberg before his death in 2005. He was too young to go. But here, he gives his take on donut receipts, one of my favorite bits of his.

Comedy Central Presents

Friday 10pm / 9c

Mitch Hedberg - Donut Receipts

Here is another one: An animated version of Mitch Hedberg's "Ducks Eat Free at Subway."

2009-04-19T12:16:00.000-07:00

Two fall readings have been booked : October 20 at University of California, Riverside and November 23 at the Sacramento Poetry Center. I'm looking forward to both visits.

Timothy Yu's New Book

2009-04-15T21:27:00.001-07:00

New from Stanford University Press (2009)--- Race and the Avant-Garde: Experimental and Asian American Poetry Since 1965 by Timothy Yu. Congratulations, Tim.

"Poet Lee Herrick's reading addresses real issues"

2009-04-14T19:11:00.001-07:00

Thank you to Laura Curtis! -- writer for The Signal-- who penned this very nice article about my reading last month at California State University, Stanislaus. * * * * * I'm working on my calendar to see about possible readings in the fall, having received invitations to read at UC Riverside and the Sacramento Poetry Center.

You have to enjoy this :

Rincon

2009-04-06T21:25:00.000-07:00

Here is a video of the most successful surfer in the world, Kelly Slater (ASP World Champion a record 9 times, including five years in a row from 1994-1998) surfing the famous Rincon break in February 2008. I have been coming to Rincon Point (south of Santa Barbara, California) every year since I was a child. My great-grandmother built the first beach house on this beach in 1940. I'm here again for spring break, and I'll tell you, there's nothing like falling asleep to the Pacific Ocean and Rincon's waves. If you look out the front windows to the left, you can watch the surfers, locals and world champions alike, riding the waves like this:

2009-04-02T06:04:00.000-07:00

On Tuesday afternoon, I was the guest author at Merced High School, where the student org Valley Voices has got it together. It was such a pleasure meeting all the students, hearing them read their work, and talking to them about anaphora and authenticity and reading some poems from my book for them. There were about twenty creative writing students, juniors and seniors, bussed in from different high schools--Central Catholic in Modesto, Merced High, and Golden Valley in Merced. Poet Pos Moua strolled in at one point (he teaches there) and joined in on the conversation, sharing stories of getting to know Gary Snyder.

A special thank you to Ocean Jones, teacher and advisor for the Valley Voices. She coordinates the entire Valley Voices program---funded well by Heyday Books, by a grant written some years back by David Mas Masumoto. I can tell you one thing - Mas has done so much for young writers in California, it's mind-boggling, and Malcolm Margolin of Heyday and Mas both should be enshrined somewhere. It's Ocean's passion for poetry that brings it all alive, and of course, the students are why we were there. I hope each of you keeps writing. There are many stories and poems waiting for you.

*
I will be in Berkeley today (in spirit) as the five Korean women poets do their thing in Berkeley for the Lunch Poems Series.

*
I am looking forward to my students' poetry reading today out in the sun! 9:30 am---Humanities Division Lawn!

*
I am taking a group of students to UCLA and USC this weekend for an overnight tour of the universities.

*
Next week, all week, I will be at my grandmother's beach house (southern CA) basking in the sun, writing, reading, taking long walks and looking for the good rocks, maybe going in for some ocean kayaking -- relaxation for the spring break. Looking forward to seeing friends and catching up.

*
So I won't be in town for this, but if you are---it should be incredible. Tim Z. does it again. Victor Hernandez Cruz in Fresno on April 11. Emerging poet David Campos (an amazing one at that) will open up.

2009-03-25T17:19:00.000-07:00

FRESNO CITY COLLEGE welcomes
RUBY VERIDIANO-CHING
THURS, APRIL 16, 2009
11:00 – 11:50 a.m.
Main Theater

Ruby Veridiano-Ching is a poet, arts educator, VJ/television host, performing
artist, and former touring (and sole female) member of the acclaimed spoken word collective iLL-Literacy. She has performed on MTV and in venues throughout the United States and Europe, worked with Jive Records in NYC, and she has been
featured in numerous festivals, including Hip-Hop Theater Festival Bay Area and the National Asian American Theatre Festival of NYC. She graduated with a B.A. in Sociology of World Development and Communications from UC Davis and also completed studies at the Universita per Stranieri in Siena, Italy. Born in Manila and raised in Sacramento, she currently resides in Oakland, California.

Free & open to the public. Classes welcome. Ruby will sign copies of her book, Miss Universe, after the poetry performance. This event is sponsored by the Asian American Studies Department and the Humanities Division Foundation. For questions or advance seating arrangements, 559-442-4600, ext. 8105.

Yes, I'm Serious

2009-03-22T12:24:00.000-07:00

If you send me an e-mail with your mailing address, by Friday, March 27, I will send you a free copy of the Spring 2008 issue of In the Grove, which is a tribute to the late Andrés Montoya. The issue includes his long poem, "Pakatelas," as well as work by Philip Levine, Rigoberto Gonzalez, Garrett Hongo, Corrinne Clegg Hales, Lee Herrick, Oscar Bermeo, Javier Huerta, Monica Ortiz, Sasha Pimentel Chacón, Michael Medrano, Marisol Baca, Tim Z. Hernandez, David Dominguez, Maceo Montoya (Andrés's brother, the novelist), Craig Santos Perez, Sheryl Luna, and Juan Felipe Herrera, among others. The issue features an introduction by Daniel Chacón.

Send an e-mail to leeherrick [a t] hotmail with your mailing address. I will mail copies to the first 20 people I hear from. If you want to send a check for additional copies or just because you want to---send to In the Grove, PO Box 16195, Fresno, CA 93755. Please feel free to spread the word/invitation.

2009-03-19T20:30:00.001-07:00

Reading at California State University, Stanislaus yesterday was a true pleasure and an honor. I graduated from the university about fifteen years ago, and being invited back as a writer was both surreal and thoroughy enjoyable. I am especially grateful to Dr. Tony Perello and the Valley Voices Committee for inviting me, Sigma Tau Delta for its generous sponsorship, and Sarah from Sigma Tau Delta for the kind introduction. In the morning, I spoke to a creative writing class, whose professor had prepped them with three of my poems. We had a good exchange about the writing process, the metaphor, the nuances of various genres and how to write poems about the body, and the genesis of some of my work. The afternoon public reading was very well attended (I'd say over one hundred people--faculty, students, community members) and I appreciate all the kind people who came up to me after the reading and shared their thoughts. It was especially nice to see a few former professors of mine, since this reading was a good reminder just how much I learned from my time there. After the reading, some good friends and I went for Italian food at Vito's, across from the university, and after that I had the last of my scheduled events---a small group talk for students who live in the dorms. This was kindly arranged by the faculty-in-residence, who is also a poet, and although I was getting tired by this time, it turned out to be a wonderful close to the day. There were just four of us, but the students were so endearing and genuinely interested in my poems, I ended up signing a book for them and giving it to them for free. It was wonderful hearing about the students' studies in Drama and their experiences with travel. I talk to students every day about writing---I teach, after all---but this was a unique and very fulfilling occasion, to talk in depth with students from my alma mater and read from my book at the very university where I spent so much time reading, exploring, struggling, and dreaming about things I never could have imagined would come true.

Grandbois

2009-03-15T16:19:00.000-07:00

It was a nice weekend of literature. Friday, Daniel Chacón read from his new collection of stories, Unending Rooms, and last night, Denver writer Daniel Grandbois read from his new book, Unlucky Lucky Days (BOA), which is billed as fiction but may as well be prose poetry. Here's a shot from the Grandbois reading. I highly recommend both books.

(from L to R: Sasha Pimentel Chacón, Daniel Chacón, me, and Daniel Grandbois.

Great News for a Friday

2009-03-13T04:34:00.000-07:00

I'm thrilled that Juan Felipe Herrera's Half of the World in Light---a tour de force to say the least---was announced as the co-recipient of the National Book Critics Circle Award in Poetry last night. It shares the prize with August Kleinzahler's Sleeping It Off in Rapid City. Spread the word and buy the book. Yes.

Ed Bok Lee's "Returns"

2009-03-10T21:49:00.000-07:00

You must listen to Ed Bok Lee read his poem "Returns." Visit the award-winning author of Real Karaoke People here.

2009-03-09T19:30:00.001-07:00

Peter Everwine, April 2, 2009 in Fresno

2009-03-08T09:55:00.000-07:00

The steady genius of Peter Everwine -- I'm hoping to hear "Aubade in Autumn" and "How It Is," two of my favorite poems from his seven collections. This reading is the last event of the long-standing Fresno Poets' Association reading series. Thurs, April 2, 7:30 p.m. in the Bonner Auditorium, Fresno Art Museum.

yes, they got a little strange after their third record and yes, they were a bit self-indulgent, but i still love this group .

2009-03-03T21:39:00.000-08:00

Poem taken

2009-03-02T17:48:00.000-08:00

Got nice news this morning -- my poem, "Gardening Secrets of the Dead," has been accepted to a new literary magazine out of Central California, The Packinghouse Review.

2009-03-01T19:03:00.000-08:00

I thoroughly enjoyed the multi-talented Margaret Rhee's article, "The Love Song Politics of Kundiman," and I think you will, too. She writes about the popular Kundiman, a writers retreat for Asian American poets at the University of Virgina in Charlottesville each summer, which recently celebrated its fifth anniversary. Co-founded by Joseph Legaspi and Sarah Gambito (whose new book, Delivered, is just out from Persea Books), the organization is fueling some of the best creative energy at work today. Rhee's account is insightful and much appreciated.

* * * * *

Daniel Chacón's new book (short stories), Unending Rooms, is five-stars and then some. He'll be reading throughout California in March, including March 13 at Fresno State and March 17 at Fresno City College. Read his blog about book tours and writing here.

"Unending Rooms is a visit to the hidden recesses of the mind, a place where Jorge Luis Borges and Stephen King sit down for coffee while a cello plays a bittersweet melody you can almost remember. Once you enter, you will emerge a different person."

—Kathleen Alcala, author of The Desert Remembers My Name and Mrs. Vargas and the Dead Naturalist

“Daniel Chacón’s distinctive storytelling, with its defiance to linearity and closure, with its leanings toward metafiction, gestures south to the Latin American greats like Borges, Cortázar and Paz, but his sensibility is pure Chicano — the hero and anti-hero of the twenty-first century who sinks and swims through libraries and barrios, politics and passions, tradition and innovation. Unending Rooms is a testament of identity as experienced, not on the margins, but at the center of the beautiful and terrifying cycles.”

—Rigoberto González, author of Butterfly Boy: Memoirs of a Chicano Mariposa

* * * * *

María Meléndez
Friday, March 6 at 7:00 PM in the Alice Peters Auditorium at Fresno State

María’s poetry collection, How Long She'll Last in This World (University of Arizona Press), was a finalist for the 2007 PEN Center USA Literary Awards, and her work – poetry, fiction, and essays – has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, including International Quarterly, Ecological Restoration, and The Wind Shifts: New Latino Poetry. In her varied career, she has worked as writer-in-residence at the Davis Arboretum, served as an Acquisitions and Managing Editor at Momotombo Press, edited two anthologies of student and teacher verse for California Poets in the Schools, broadcast her essays on arts and advocacy as part of NPR's American Democracy Project, and co-coordinated Poetas y Pintores: Artists Conversing with Verse, a traveling exhibition of contemporary Latino art and poetry. She currently lives in Logan, Utah, where she teaches creative writing and American literature at Utah State University.

Paul's Boutique, 20 Year Anniversary

2009-02-26T19:51:00.000-08:00

Hands down---the best album of 1989 was the Beastie Boys' monumental Paul's Boutique, 53 minutes of rump shaking, egg throwing, high plains drifting joy. The band is releasing a re-issue to celebrate the 20th anniversary, which you can read about here. The album includes a mind-boggling but seamlessly woven 105 samples, and I was surprised to read that "Shake Your Rump," one of the album's best tracks, includes a sample of Led Zeppelin's "Good Times, Bad Times"---not because the Beasties weren't fans of Zeppelin, of course ("Rhymin and Stealin" after all, was pure "When the Levee Breaks")---but because I've listened to "Shake Your Rump" probably a thousand times and I'd never noticed it. But I think I've found it---it's in a drum roll.

I got to thinking of how much I love this album after reading this fantastic poet's list of 20 influential albums. It's hard to believe it's been 20 years. I don't think e-mail even existed in 1989, or if it did, I sure didn't have it. In those days, when I could handle being among the sweaty mass and front row pit of bodies at a Beastie Boys show, I saw them live five times. I'm too old to handle the ruckus of the shows now, but now and then I can sure enjoy a good flashback, like this:

Some News from this City and the Towns Around It

2009-02-24T19:36:00.000-08:00

There's some exciting poetry news coming out of Fresno. My friend, acclaimed poet Brian Turner, has a second book, Talk the Guns, coming out in early 2010 from Alice James Books. Another poet friend, Mike Medrano, will have his first book, I Was Born in the Cavity of Sunsets, published in 2010. Jon Veinberg has a new book, The Speed Limit of Clouds, just out from C & R Press. And another poet friend David Dominguez, author of Work Done Right from the University of Arizona Press, has founded a new literary magazine along with Reedley College colleague Rick Garza: The Packinghouse Review. *

I'm busy with quite a few exciting projects these days: I'm guest editing two projects, one for Asian American Poetry and Writing (Los Angeles) as well as the forthcoming issue of the Rio Grande Review (El Paso). I'm grateful to the editors of both publications for inviting me to serve as Guest Editor. I'm also facilitating two separate book discussion meetings for the NEA Big Read on Mark Twain's The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. These events are in late March, one at the Selma Public Library and the other in Fresno at the Talking Book Library for the blind. I'm also looking very forward to my reading on March 18 at CSU Stanislaus---please come if you're in the area. And last but not least, I am very excited about the invitation to read in New York City for Kundiman on November 8, 2009. I'll be reading with Sandy Tseng (book forthcoming! from Four Way Books, October 2009) and the one and only Lee Ann Roripaugh.

20 Poetry Books That I Love Meme

2009-02-22T07:30:00.000-08:00

Mari L'Esperance tagged me with this on Facebook:

20 Poetry Books That I Love

What are 20 poetry books (if there are twenty) that made you fall in love with poetry, the books that made you think: I want to do this, I need to do this. What are the books that kept you going? Don’t put down the books that you think you’re “supposed,” to like, but list the core ones, the ones that opened all of this up for you. Here’s my list (in no particular order):

1. The City in Which I Love You - Li-Young Lee
2. Residence On Earth - Pablo Neruda
3. Poems Retrieved - Frank O'Hara
4. The Open Boat - Garrett Hongo, Ed.
5. The Temperature of This Water - Ishle Yi Park
6. the ice worker sings and other poems - Andrés Montoya
7. The Simple Truth - Philip Levine
8. Selected Levis - Larry Levis
9. Paper Pavilion - Jennifer Kwon Dobbs
10. Notebooks of a Chile Verde Smuggler - Juan Felipe Herrera
11. Skirt Full of Black - Sun Yung Shin
12. Angle of Yaw - Ben Lerner
13. Song - Brigit Pegeen Kelley
14. Stone Bow Prayer - Amy Uyematsu
15. Rose - Li-Young Lee
16. Say Goodnight - Timothy Liu
17. Here, Bullet - Brian Turner
18. Howl - Allen Ginsberg
19. 108 Zen Poems - Ko Un
20. Alabanza - Martín Espada

(After I made this list, I thought of more, including Yusef Komunyakaa's Neon Vernacular).

* If you want to list yours, please do (and let me know so I can read it).

Poet Kim Ki-Taek in Minnesota

2009-02-21T07:43:00.000-08:00

Distinguished Poet, Kim Ki-Taek, Lectures at University of Minnesota, The Loft Literary Center, and St. Olaf College

Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN (January 20, 2009)—Award-winning Korean poet Kim Ki-Taek will give three talks in the Twin Cities area on February 24 and 26, 2009. He will appear at the University of Minnesota, The Loft Literary Center, and St. Olaf College; his talks are free and open to the public.

Kim’s poetry focuses on violence inflicted on the body. He explores how physical and psychological violence leaves its mark behind and how that mark eventually manifests as various habits that continue to inform one's sense of self. He has tried to observe this process and record it in his poems. Literary critics have praised his work for its perceptive imagination, its "observation and description of minute and microscopic details.”

After winning the poetry section of a literary contest in Hankook Daily Newspaper in 1989, Kim focused on writing poetry professionally. He has since published four books of collected poems in Korean— Fatal Sleep (1991), Storm in the Hole of the Needle (1994), Office Worker (1999), and Cow (2005) and has won 5 major literary prizes— Kim Soo Young Literary Award, Hyundai Literary Award, Midang Literary Award, Jihoon Literary Award and Isu Literary Award. His fifth book, a selection of his poems, is forthcoming.

Kim Ki-Taek is available for interviews while in Minnesota.

Event details:

“Korean Poetry: Form and History; a talk by Kim Ki-Taek”
February 24, 2009 | 4:00-5:30 p.m. | Room 101 Walter Library | University of Minnesota east bank; 117 Pleasant Street SE, Minneapolis, MN 55455

“Contemporary Korean Poetry Through Translation and Diaspora: A Reading and Conversation with Kim Ki-Taek and Jennifer Kwon Dobbs”
February 24, 2009 | 7:30-9:00 p.m. | The Loft Literary Center | Suite 200, Open Book, 1011 Washington Avenue South, Minneapolis, MN 55415 | www.loft.org

“The Contemporary Writers Series: A Reading by Kim Ki-Taek”
February 26, 2009 | 4:00-5:30 p.m. | 525 Rolvaag Memorial Library | St. Olaf College 1510 St. Olaf Avenue Northfield, MN 55057

2009-02-17T19:46:00.000-08:00

Thanks to the folks at the Asia and Pacific Writers Network and Cha for publishing my poem, "Spectral Questions of the Body." The issue also includes poems by Bryan Thao Worra and Shirley Lim. On another note, I think I've finished a new poem that I am calling "Sing," and I'm even making headway on arriving at a title for my second manuscript. I want it to have the word "acoustic" in the title. Etymology (from the Online Etymology Dictionary): 1605, from Fr. acoustique, from Gk. akoustikos "pertaining to hearing," from akoustos "heard, audible," from akouein "to hear," from copulative prefix a- + koein "to mark, perceive, hear," from PIE base *(s)keu- "to notice, observe."

2009-02-15T09:38:00.000-08:00

North Beach = books. My recent take: Small Hours of the Night by Roque Dalton (pictured, left), Poker by Tomas Salamun, from UNINCORPORATED TERRITORY by Craig Santos Perez, Ovarian Twists by Anyssa Kim, Amorisco by Khaled Mattawa, World Ball Notebook by Sesshu Foster, and Pigeon Post by Dumitru Tsepeneag. Read personal accounts of Dalton's work and life by Ernesto Cardenal and Claribel Alegria here.

* I'm reading at Full Circle in Fresno this Thursday, Feb. 19. Hope to see you. I hope to have a new poem ready to go, about carrying Amorisco in the rain.

2009-02-07T15:18:00.000-08:00

Here is S on the deck of the beach house, Rincon Point, February 2009. We spent the afternoon playing with the beach toys (ah, the joy of dumping water from one bucket into another!). In between that, eating, and naps, I've been reading some incredible submissions for a project I'm guest editing for a new org out of southern California.

2009-02-05T20:20:00.001-08:00

Rincon Point, the world famous surf-spot ten minutes south of Santa Barbara, is like a second home to me. In 1939, my great-grandmother built the very first beach house here, and not much has changed (original wood floors, no television)---but now there are pretty big homes surrounding it (Kevin Costner has a place about eight houses up the road). I've come here every year for about thirty years (I'm here for the weekend), so you can imagine how good it feels. The grand Pacific Ocean is about twenty yards from the deck. These waves, as I fall asleep---probably my favorite sound in the world. "Yoga on the Beach" and "For Bob Marley" (poems from my book) were both written while staying here. My grandmother, who passed away recently at age 96, was an extraordinary woman, and her joy and love of Rincon and Ojai permeate the house. I am thinking of her tonight. The ocean slows everything down.

Thursday, February 19 @ Full Circle Brewery

2009-02-03T19:30:00.000-08:00

I am not a spoken word poet. But I am happy to have been invited to feature for the Inner Ear Poetry Jam, the longest running spoken word series in Fresno. While I am not a "performance poet," I have never had much interest in the poetry community's divisions nor its polarizing terms, and I have admired most of the spoken word poets I've seen. Full Circle is a great space for poetry, so come on out. Doors open at 7:30 pm (open mic around 8-ish, I think)---I'll read around 9:30.

Full Circle Brewing Co.
620 F St.
Historic Chinatown
Fresno, CA
(559) 264-6323

Brilliant Music

2009-01-28T13:51:00.001-08:00

Stephen Malkmus and Jicks. "Dragonfly Pie" is sonic and lyric bliss, in my humble opinion. I saw Pavement at the Tibetan Freedom Concert in San Francisco in 1996, among 100,000 other people sun-baked and singing, and hopefully I can see the new band do its thing soon. Their latest album, Real Emotional Trash, is "a fantastic psychedelic feast, full of cosmic guitar crackle and electric piano and batshit poetry. It's the album Malkmus has been driving at ever since he learned how to rip off the Velvet Underground and Quicksilver Messenger Service at the same time — a full-body baptism in John Cipollina's bong water."

Brilliant

2009-01-27T19:22:00.001-08:00

Read Jennifer Kwon Dobbs' illuminating essay, "Home as the Direction of Search," part of The New Symposium of the International Writing Program. Also included in this series on the "Home/Land" theme are essays by Natasha Tretheway and David St. John.

Brilliant

2009-01-26T23:15:00.000-08:00

From the Working Paper Series at the US-Korea Institute at SAIS: "Mapping Multiple Histories of Korean American Transnational Adoption," by Kim Park Nelson. In this paper, Prof. Park Nelson examines the socio-political history of Korean American transnational, transracial adoption, including the pull factors of America's demand for adoptable children and the social conditions and immigration policies which facilitated this exchange, as well as the relevance of this growing community of Korean Adoptees.

Kim Park Nelson is a scholar and educator of Korean adoption, Asian American Studies, American race relations, and American Studies. Between 2003 and 2006, she collected 73 oral histories from Korean adoptees in the United States and the around the world. She also developed and taught the first college course on Korean adoption in the United States. She is an assistant professor of American Multicultural Studies at Minnesota State University at Moorhead.

Lee Herrick on KFCF 88.1 fm this Thursday

2009-01-24T15:09:00.000-08:00

Many thanks to Mike Medrano and David Campos, who interviewed me this morning for their new radio program, Pákatelas. We had a nice interview about music, poetry, and process, and I read my poem, "My California," written during the fall election season. It will be broadcast this Thursday, January 29 at 3:00 p.m. on KFCF 88.1 on your f.m dial. KFCF is a sister station of KPFA in Berkeley. Medrano's first collection of poems, I Was Born in the Cavity of Sunsets, is forthcoming from Bilingual Review Press, and Campos is a vibrant new voice on the poetry scene, and I know you'll be hearing more from him in the future. It was great to be on the show, so I hope you can tune in. Pákatelas will air on the second and fourth Thursday of each month at 3:00 p.m.

Random Photos

2009-01-23T18:44:00.000-08:00

I don't know the exact year, but I think this is from 1975 or 1976, when we lived in the East Bay. I seem very determined to blow out each candle on my birthday cake. Dig the shirt.

Early in 2008, I was at the Loft Literary Center in one of my favorite cities, Minneapolis, for a poetry reading with Sun Yung Shin and Bryan Thao Worra. Pictured from left to right: Bao Phi, Lee Herrick, Bryan Thao Worra, and Ed Bok Lee.

In May 2008, in Seoul, Korea before a poetry reading, we met a nice woman making kimchi, and she insisted I try some and proceeded to feed me a huge mouthful. I had no choice but to devour it--much to my delight. This is one of my favorite pictures.

2009-01-23T16:37:00.000-08:00

what joy---the sparse guitar and the small voice dancing in the light! Poet Ishle Yi Park and Sua in the sun---

Visit ishle.com

2009-01-21T21:14:00.000-08:00

Over the campaign season and in the last few days, particularly after Obama's Inauguration, I have been thinking about my graduate studies, which culminated in my thesis, which examined the January 20, 1961 inauguration speech and crisis rhetoric of John F. Kennedy in light of Aristotle's seminal book, The Rhetoric, which influenced classical rhetoricians from Quintillian to Cicero, and laid the foundation for Presidential speeches in most any context. Aristotelian rhetoric, briefly defined as the ability to find all means of persuasion in any given situation (legal, political, social), considers the enthymeme as the "body of persuasion." One can think of the enthymeme as a shortened syllogism, an important persuasive technique most good orators innately understand and employ, along with the other three means of persuasion--ethos, pathos, and logos. I have marveled at the masterful oratory skill of our new President. He is moving. And there is substance. The ancient Greeks, I think, would be proud.

Part of my studies involved reading hundreds of speeches by various Presidents, mostly Ronald Reagan and John F. Kennedy. Among the speeches JFK delivered, some of the most fascinating are the exchanges between Kennedy and Khrushchev during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Also, I read the speech the JFK never delivered---the one he had already prepared before the fateful day in Texas. Last month, I learned about an undelivered speech by another miraculous orator, Martin Luther King, Jr. MLK would often have scraps of paper in his pockets. When he was killed, there was a list titled "Ten Commandments on Viet Nam," notes for a speech he was to give a few weeks later. Tragically, he was killed and never gave the speech. But I was deeply moved when I heard the audio of Coretta Scott King, his wife, who read it three weeks after MLK's death. The first of the ten she reads is "Thou shall not believe in military victory." You can hear Coretta Scott King deliver the reading here.

At any rate, all the election excitement had me thinking again about my graduate studies, persuasion, enthymemes (and the poetic use of anaphora in political rhetoric strategy), and the remarkable connections between Obama's speeches and Aristotelian rhetorical principles.

2009-01-18T12:47:00.001-08:00

On Wednesday, March 18, I will be giving an afternoon reading at California State University Stanislaus for their Voices of the Valley reading series. Mark your calendars, if you are in the area. Past readers include Gary Soto, Jon Veinberg, and Dixie Salazar. More details to follow.

2009-01-15T22:37:00.000-08:00

Department of Eagles --- I like this.

Elizabeth Alexander on Barack Obama --- Poetry and Obama's Respect for the Power of Language

2009-01-14T18:13:00.000-08:00

When Elizabeth Alexander reads her poem at next week's inauguration, the surreal and simple truth is that we are welcoming a President with a deep appreciation for the written word in its critical and creative forms. I am recalling his two published poems, in the now-defunct Feast in 1987, and his time leading the Harvard Law Review, much less his memoirs. I am also thinking of this morning's story on NPR online about Obama's effect on the publishing world and the story's photograph with Obama and his eldest daughter, who was holding a copy of her current reading, a book by Cynthia Kadohata. I am pleased for Graywolf Press (the home of Linda Gregg and Jane Jeong Trenka, among my favorite writers)---Graywolf will be publishing the chapbook of Alexander's poem. It will be available on February 10, 2009. A Spanish edition will follow.

In the new year, with all of the challenges ahead of us, I seek simple ways to direct my financial, social, and creative energies into the arts, the libraries, the reading series, and the small presses everywhere.

On her website, Elizabeth Alexander writes:

“Words matter. Language matters. We live in and express ourselves with language, and that is how we communicate and move through the world in community.

President-elect Obama has shown us at all turns his respect for the power of language. The care with which he has always used language along with his evident understanding that language and words bear power and tell us who we are across differences, have been hallmarks of his political career. My joy at being selected to compose and deliver a poem on the occasion of Obama’s Presidential inaugural emanates from my deep respect for him as a person of meaningful, powerful words that move us forward. And as his campaign was a movement much larger than the man himself, I understand that as a country we stand poised to make tremendous choices about our collective future. The distillation of language in poetry, its precision, can help us see sharply in the midst of many conundrums.

This is a powerful moment in our history. The joy I feel is sober and profound because so much struggle and sacrifice have brought us to this day. And there is so much work to be done ahead of us. Poetry is not meant to cheer; rather, poetry challenges, and moves us towards transformation. Language distilled and artfully arranged shifts our experience of the words – and the worldviews – we live in.

This is only the fourth time in our history that a President has featured a poet at his inaugural. I hope that this portends well for the future of the arts in our everyday and civic life.”

Elizabeth Alexander
December 2008

DAY ONE: A Funky Inuagural Getdown, Tuesday, January 20, 2009 at the Starline

2009-01-14T06:33:00.001-08:00

On Tuesday, January 20, 2009, the Starline in Fresno will be a good place to be---8:30 p.m.--- for an inauguration party the organizers are calling DAY ONE: A Funky Inaugural Getdown. I haven't seen much in the way of performers, but all you need to know is that the incredible Armen Nalbandian will be playing---his first live performance in eight months. There are also some poets reading---and I have been asked to read a poem for the occasion, too (*updated*---I won't be reading, but I plan to enjoy the music). No doubt, there will be good cheer in the air.

2009-01-08T20:46:00.000-08:00

EIGHTH ANNUAL (BELATED) HOLIDAY POETRY CONTEST
Sponsor: Meritage Press
Judge: Bino A. Realuyo
Deadline: February 15, 2009

Contest details below are also available, along with prior contest winners, at http://www.meritagepress.com/babaylan/

ABOUT THE JUDGE:

Bino A. Realuyo is the author of the poetry collection, THE GODS WE WORSHIP LIVE NEXT DOOR, the Agha Shahid Ali Prize for poetry 2005 (University of Utah Press 2006 and Anvil Press, Philippines 2008). Prior to publication, his poetry appeared in The Kenyon Review, The Literary Review, Puerto del Sol, New Letters, Manoa, and The Nation. He received Poetry Society of America's Lucille Medwick Memorial Award and a Van Lier Fellowship in poetry. He is working on a second poetry collection titled, ON WHICH THE SUMMER LEANS, about the experiences of his father as a survivor of the Death March and a Japanese Concentration camp during World War 2 in the Philippines. He is currently pursuing graduate studies in education and technology and is a fellow in social entrepreneurship at Harvard University. He is also an accidental fictionist and suffers from a multiple literary personality/genre syndrome. He loves facebook.

ABOUT THE CONTEST:

All poets are encouraged to submit by e-mailing 1 or 2 poems to MeritagePress@aol.com. (Send no more than 2 poems). Please present poems within the body of the email as we do not open attachments.) Please include your full name along with your e-mail address. However, the poems will be sent without your names to judge Bino A. Realuyo, thereby allowing the poems to be read on their own merit. All poets are welcome to submit - it doesn't matter whether you're established or emerging as the work is read on its own merit. There are no limitations to poetry styles or content. All types of poems are welcome. We are now taking submissions up to the deadline of Feb. 15, 2009.

Only previously unpublished poems are eligible (you may, however, submit poems that you have featured on your own web sites or or blogs, or that have been published in limited edition chapbooks of no more than 250 copies).

PRIZES:

Meritage Press has asked Bino A. Realuyo to choose one winner. However, Bino may choose other finalist-winners, depending on the quality of the submissions. The winner(s) will have their poems published in the March 2009 edition of "Babaylan Speaks" at http://meritagepress.com/babaylan/

The FIRST PLACE WINNER also will receive SELECTED FILIPINO TITLES:

THE GODS WE WORSHIP LIVE NEXT DOOR by Bino A. Realuyo; PRAU by Jean Vengua; MUSEUM OF ABSENCES by Luis H. Francia; KALI'S BLADE by Michelle Bautista; THE HAY(NA)KU ANTHOLOGY, VOL. II co-edited by Jean Vengua and Mark Young; PINOY POETICS: A Collection of Autobiographical and Critical Essays on Filipino and Filipino American Poetics, edited by Nick Carbo; BABAYLAN: AN ANTHOLOGY OF FILIPINA AND FILIPINA AMERICAN WRITERS, co-edited by Nick Carbo and Eileen Tabios; NOT EVEN DOGS, the inaugural hay(na)ku poetry collection by Ernesto Priego; THE BLIND CHATELAINE'S KEYS by Eileen Tabios; THE LIGHT SANG AS IT LEFT YOUR EYES by Eileen Tabios; I TAKE THEE, ENGLISH, FOR MY BELOVED by Eileen Tabios; MENAGE A TROIS WITH THE 21st CENTURY by Eileen Tabios; REPRODUCTIONS OF THE EMPTY FLAGPOLE by Eileen Tabios; and BRIDGEABLE SHORES by Luis Cabalquinto.

FINALISTS:
Other finalist-winners besides the winner, if any, will receive two of the above-listed books (the choice of books are up to Meritage Press).

PREVIOUS WINNERS:
2007: Naya S. Valdellon & Marcel L. MiIliam (Judge: Eric Gamalinda)
2006: Joel M. Toledo (Judge: Michelle Bautista)
2005: Arkaye Velasquez Kierulf (Judge: Jean Vengua)
2004: Joel H. Vega (Judge: Sarah Gambito)
2003: Luisa A. Igloria (Judge: Patrick Rosal)
2002: Naya S. Valdellon & Michella Rivera-Gravage (Judge: Oliver de la Paz)
2001: Carlomar Arcangel Daoana (Judge: Nick Carbo)

For questions or more information, you can email MeritagePress@aol.com

*

A READING and 2 ALL DAY WORKSHOPS !!!

9:30 am -4:30 pm April 18th: Philip Levine and Larry Levis: Fresno poetry and its influence.

Philip Levine is arguably the most influential living poet in America. As a poet his work has not only won every prize available but has also helped to shape the direction of American poetry over the past 40 years. As a teacher, his influence has spread far beyond those writers known as The Fresno Poets (there have been four anthologies of work by Fresno poets) through his many years of teaching at Tufts University, NYU and other institutions as well. We will also look at the work of Levine's most famous student, Larry Levis, whose poetry has emerged as some of the most influential work (look at the poems of Tony Hoagland, Marie Howe etc., as well as countless younger poets) of the past 20 years. Bring boxes of raisins and be able to quote at least one line from William Saroyan.

The Ruskin Art Club
800 S Plymouth Blvd Los Angeles CA 90005
1 block s of Wilshire/3blocks w of Crenshaw
310-936-7484 Elena Karina Byrne, Literary Programs Director

For more information, Please email Ekduende@cox.net

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$95 Full Day (Breakfast & Lunch included)
$45 Audit (Breakfast & Morning session till 12:30 only)
Checks made payable to the Ruskin Art Club

Send to:

Po Box 3761 Palos Verdes Peninsula CA 90274

Q and A: Facts, Probably: Lee Kwang Soo, born in Daejeon, Korea, December 1970 and adopted to the United States on October 12, 1971

2009-01-03T15:40:00.000-08:00

Q and A

My birth name is Lee Kwang Soo. I was born in Daejeon, Korea on December 16, 1970 and adopted to the United States on October 12, 1971 when I was ten months old. There was a plane. It was San Francisco. Holt Adoption Agency. The water's chill must have been preparing a song. Korean adoption is a body of water. I am one of the waves. One of the war fractures. The idea that did not detonate. This is love and nothing to do with love. For the adoptees I have met in the last year and a half while traveling and reading from my book, can I begin to tell you what our conversations have meant? I am thinking of you in this new year. There is a light for us. Perhaps, a star with its wide shine. Have you thought about returning? Yes. I have returned. We turn and we turn, don't we? I wonder: how audible is desire? How much is carried in a name? And if all the stars spoke one common language, would they even know what to say?

2008-12-29T14:31:00.000-08:00

Earlier this month, I had the honor of reading at UC Berkeley with Naomi Quinonez and Hugo Garcia Manriquez in honor of the 40th Anniversary of Berkeley's Ethnic Studies Department. Achiote Press sponsored the reading, and I'm extending a belated thank you to Craig and Jennifer, whose gracious spirit and hard work have produced some remarkable publications. Visit Achiote and stay a while.

Speaking of such publications, I was thrilled to get a copy of Oscar Bermeo's new chapbook and to see him, Javier Huerta, Patricia Wakida, and Summi Kaipa, among others, in the audience. Oscar kindly recorded some of the evening's readings---including this one of me reading "Exercises On Themes from Life," the last poem in Alice Walker's first collection, Once, published in 1968 (I read it with the 40th anniversary in mind). I'll leave this video up for a little while, and then it will disappear.

I think my blogging days might also be numbered. I am, however, very excited about the progress of my second manuscript. I have around 40 poems I feel good about---they are very different (darker, more assertive) than those in This Many Miles from Desire, but I am interested to see what shape they take as a collection. We'll see what happens. With the first book, I had a title early on and it never changed. With this second manuscript, no title has come to me. I doubt any of these will be the final title, but some of the new poem titles that I am tossing around as potential titles for the manuscript include:

* Division (or, This Division)
* Open Architecture
* Gardening Secrets of the Dead
* You Are Here

Anyway: Happy New Year to each of you---may 2009 be your best year yet.

2008-12-03T17:27:00.000-08:00

BorderSenses is actively seeking submissions for Volume 15, a themed issue on double identity. We are seeking works in poetry, fiction, nonfiction and photography, in both Spanish and English languages. Translations, provided all rights and permissions have been granted, are also considered by our editors.

The chimera, a mythological fire-breathing animal composed of multiple parts, is said to have had the head of a lion, the body of a goat, and the tail of a serpent. In human beings, the chimeric phenomenon manifests as a person with two genetically different types of cells. For this issue, we propose the chimera as a metaphor for the creature of the border, for which two different forms of blood can exist in one body.

BorderSenses would like to use the chimera as a metaphor for our next thematic issue, which seeks work that negotiates a duplicity of being. For more details, please visit www.bordersenses.com

2008-12-01T16:10:00.000-08:00

Sun Yung Shin receives Asian American Writers' Workshop Poetry Award! ~ ~ ~ Amy Anderson blogs about her birth family search at LA Moms Blog ~ ~ ~ MiPOesias gets better and better, somehow ~ ~ ~ First Book Interviews: Continuing in the Tradition of Kate Greenstreet

2008-11-25T15:20:00.001-08:00

2008-11-23T19:36:00.000-08:00

It was nice catching up with Neil Aitken, author of The Lost Country of Sight, Winner of the 2007 Philip Levine Prize. We had coffee last Friday before his reading at Fresno State, so we talked about first books, readings, and blurbs. It was also nice hearing about his work as a computer programmer, and the influence of Levine's The Simple Truth on his own poetry. I had to miss the reading because I was speaking at a book club that night, but I was able to get my signed copy of his book (with great blurbs from Li-Young Lee, Terrance Hayes, and C.G. Hanzlicek). You can read more about Neil's book here.

Speaking of the book club reading, it was a very rewarding evening (and it was at a beautiful home only a few blocks from my house). Apparently, this book club has been meeting for about thirty years, and they are a wonderful, cultured, very well-read bunch. They read everything from history, to fiction (Junot Diaz is their next book), to memoir, and my book was the second book of poems they've read---the other being one of Robert Frost's. It was a great surprise walking in and seeing novelist David Borofka and Debbie Borofka, as well. David's book, Hints of His Mortality, is one of the group's past selections, and David is a fantastic reader and a great spirit, so it was nice to see a familiar face. There were about twenty-five people, all of whom had read my book closely before the delicious potluck, so it was very nice to have such sincere and informed questions. Thank you, Larry, for having me.

Thank you, also, Sunny and Gail from the Kings County Library in Hanford, for having me as part of their lecture series. It was a thoroughly enjoyable evening, such warmth, and I hope to return in May for the Asian Pacific American events being planned. I stopped off after the reading and bought a half-gallon of chocolate chip ice cream from Superior Dairy, which makes the best ice cream in the world, according to two of my friends. I've already eaten half of it. I might have to drive back to Hanford, forty-five minutes south of Fresno, just to get more. It's that good.

I'm starting to realize it's almost the end of the semester, and I have a ton to do. I'm keeping up with my grading, writing letters of recommendation, trying to finish my sabbatical report for the Board of Trustees, and finishing the last touches on a composition textbook I am co-authoring (due next year from Prentice Hall). I am also very excited about a particular editing project---I was asked to Guest Edit a special issue for an online publication (they haven't announced anything that I know of so I won't name it here)---it will focus on the writing of contemporary Korean Adoptee poets and writers, and I'm telling you, it's going to be amazing. Contributors include Jane Jeong Trenka, Jennifer Kwon Dobbs, Sun Yung Shin, Beth Lo, Nicky Schildkraut, Emily Hurd, Leah Silveus, and Hyun Jin Ning, among others. It will feature a conversation between Trenka (author of The Language of Blood), Kwon Dobbs (author of Paper Pavilion) and Shin (author of Skirt Full of Black), in which they exchange ideas on the Western literary canon and its impact on their work, Korean/Korean American work such as Dictee, living and traveling in Korea, the space(s) where politics and language intersect, the term "Korean adoptee writer," advice for young writers, and perhaps stories from their readings. Keep an eye out here for more details on the issue or get in touch with me. It should be out sometime next spring.

Oh---and if you are in the East Bay on December 2---I will be reading at UC Berkeley (with Naomi Quinonez and Hugo Garcia Manriquez) to celebrate the 40th Anniversary of the Ethnic Studies Library. Hope to see you there.

*

New Music Love: ONE DAY AS A LION

National Book Awards -- Winners Announced

2008-11-20T09:10:00.001-08:00

here.

2008-11-19T14:10:00.000-08:00

I just noticed that my book, This Many Miles from Desire, is up for the 2008 Members' Choice Award from the Asian American Writers' Workshop. The list of nominees is incredible (Shin, Kwon Dobbs, Legaspi, Sharma, Park Hong, Song, and others, in poetry). You can see them here, and current members of the Workshop can vote until November 26. I don't know how you choose---in fiction, Ha Jin, Min Jee Lee, Tao Lin, among others, are nominated.
*
Congratulations to my good friend Sasha Pimentel Chacón, whose expansive poem "Blood, Sister," is forthcoming in the American Poetry Review.
*
This Friday, Neil Aitken, author of The Lost Country of Sight, reads at Fresno State at 7:00 p.m. with Chuck Hanzlicek. More details here.

2008-11-17T21:01:00.001-08:00

Thank you to Chris Haire of the Hornet, Fullerton College's newspaper, for this write-up of my reading a couple of weeks ago.
*
This Thursday, November 20, I will be reading/speaking at 6:30 p.m. at Kings County Library in Hanford, CA for the Kings County Lecture Series.
*
And Friday, I am looking forward to reading/speaking to a book club in Fresno---the first book club I've ever done. Should be interesting.

2008-11-14T18:55:00.000-08:00

I turn thirty - _____ on Sunday. Yes, it's another birthday, and I feel good. * I'm thoroughly enjoying Ha Jin's new book, The Writer as Migrant. * I'm excited to have been invited to read at my alma mater next spring. * Ate at the new Ethiopian restaurant today for lunch. It was very nice. * Heavy rotation: "Every Valley Is Not a Lake," Cold War Kids. * Currently teaching : Paolo Freire's Education for Critical Consciousness. *You are living proof, the breath, the what that might light that coal *

2008-11-13T16:37:00.000-08:00

Jennifer Kwon Dobbs and I smile in front of Eastwind Books of Berkeley right before our reading last month.

2008-11-12T14:21:00.000-08:00

A sign from one of my favorite coffee shops in Fresno, Javawava. I love refills.

I probably shouldn't be reading lyrics from the great new Cold War Kids CD while driving around town, much less taking a picture of it, but nonetheless...

November

2008-11-08T10:04:00.000-08:00

I am still riding so high on the decisive, historic, and uplifting Presidential election results. And I am riding high from the wonderful reception and reading at Fullerton College last week. Around 200-250 people came to my reading, in the beautiful Wilshire Auditorium. Thank you to everyone who came out and thank you to Bruce, Amber, and the committee for your kind hospitality and warmth. And I am overjoyed at my friend's nomination for the Asian American Literary Award in Poetry---Sun Yung Shin's remarkable first book, Skirt Full of Black. Go Sun Yung!

*

I am also glad to be writing these days. The last few months I have had so much going on that I haven't been able to write much, but the last two weeks have been good. I am currently working on some prose---short vignettes about Korea, aspects of its political history and its intersections with political poets from 1965-1975, the economy of agency and adoption. I don't have the best footing when it comes to writing prose, so I am not sure where this writing will eventually go---towards fiction or perhaps towards poems. But whatever form the ideas ultimately assume, I am very glad to be writing.

*

And, I thought I would post a photo of my biggest joy, S. Here she is, playing her rendition of Row, row, row your boat.

Young Jean Lee

2008-10-29T21:29:00.000-07:00

Playwright Young Jean Lee is on the move. & Sarah Chang, Violinist, plays at Fresno's Saroyan Theater on Nov. 15 and 16.

Herrick in Fullerton, CA on Election Day, November 4

2008-10-26T07:59:00.000-07:00

If you're in the Fullerton/Los Angeles area, I hope you can come out to this event after you vote.

2008-10-25T19:11:00.001-07:00

2008-10-21T20:00:00.001-07:00

Come see me here.

Thank you so much to Ji In and everyone from the KAHI Board for having me read in Honolulu and for the wonderful gathering. It was an amazing five days, and I already miss everyone there! Thanks, too, to Barbara in Oakland for setting us up with the nice reading at Eastwind Books of Berkeley and Harvey D. for having us. Oscar has posted some video of Jennifer Kwon Dobbs and me reading (yes, I have been You Tubed).

October

2008-10-06T20:46:00.001-07:00

I am looking forward to the Asian Adult Adoptee Gathering and Film Festival later this week in beautiful Hawai'i. I've never been to the Big Island, so I'm looking forward to exploring, hiking, and taking in the sights and sounds. The Gathering itself should be informative and fun. I just read at Susan Ito's blog that she is doing a panel, which I am looking forward to. I am reading at the opening dinner, and I have been asked to read the poem, "Light," which I wrote for the late Julia Ji-Hye Mendelson. I will read that poem in remembrance and celebration of her life. And I can't wait for the film festival itself. You can read about the films here. They look incredible.

After Hawai'i, I have a busy couple of weeks with readings. On October 17, I am hosting Poet Jennifer Kwon Dobbs for a reading at my college (11:00 a.m., Student Lounge). On October 18, Jennifer and I are reading in Berkeley at Eastwind Books (3:30 p.m.). And on October 23, I am reading in Fresno for the first time since my book came out last summer. The reading is the last one of the year for the always enjoyable Respite by the River Reading Series, which is held at a beautiful outdoor venue near the San Joaquin River. At 6 pm, there's live music, and you can bring a blanket or lawn chair, a picnic and/or something to drink, and at 7 pm I will read. Details are here. I hope you can attend.

Oh, and for those of you in the Los Angeles/Fullerton area, come on out to the Wilshire Auditorium in Fullerton on November 4 at 7:00 p.m. I'll be reading there (details are here), focusing on the poems and the word---and keeping my fingers crossed for good election results in the morning.

jason lytle "sew low" album due in 2008

2008-09-24T20:45:00.000-07:00

Grandaddy was great. The band from Modesto, California (where I lived for a while and where my parents and sister live) disbanded a few years ago, but I still think their album Sumday is one of the best records ever made. I actually own it on vinyl. I saw them play at Slim's once, and again at a tiny little bar in Modesto with Earlimart. Here is one of my favorite songs from Sumday, "The Group Who Couldn't Say." It contains a few great lyrics: "The sprinklers that come on at 3 a.m./ sound like crowds of people asking, 'Are you happy what you're doin?" and "Becky wondered why/ she never noticed dragonflies/ her drag and click had never yielded anything as perfect as a dragonfly."

Jason Lytle, lead singer and guitarist, has a solo album coming out sometime this year. I've been so busy lately and out of tune with new music that I hardly ever keep up anymore, but I'm exited about this one.

Life ain't nothin but a good groove, a good mix tape to put you in the right mood

2008-09-24T20:14:00.000-07:00

The first live concert I ever saw was around 1987---Beastie Boys, Fishbone, and Murphy's Law. I saw the Beastie Boys again few times after that, once at the Tibetan Freedom Concert in San Francisco, and also at one of my favorite venues, The Warfield. Here they are on Letterman recently, hopping around Manhattan before swooping onto the stage before the live audience.

Javier Huerta Blogs at the Harriet, the Poetry Foundation Blog

2008-09-23T22:49:00.000-07:00

There's always something engaging at the Poetry Foundation Blog. Case in point: Poet Javier Huerta's "John Keats's Self-Caricature." His acclaimed book is Some Clarifications y otras poemas (Arte Publico, 2007).

Fatherhood Joy

2008-09-21T08:35:00.000-07:00

Here is a picture of my biggest joy, my daughter, who has discovered the magic of the scooter. Ah, wheels!

2008-09-16T17:26:00.000-07:00

Juan Felipe Herrera will serve as judge for this year's Walt Whitman Award from the Academy of American Poets. This award honors a poet's first book and carries a prize of $5,000 and publication. Deadline: November 15, 2008. Guidelines here.

Gillian Wegener Poetry Reading at Fresno City College

2008-09-14T16:12:00.000-07:00

Gillian Wegener, author of The Opposite of Clairvoyance, will read and sign copies at Fresno City College on Thursday, October 2, 2008 at 11:00 a.m. in the Student Lounge. I hope to see you there. I will be introducing Wegener, who has been one of my favorite poets for a long time. Her work has received praise from David St. John and Jane Hirschfield, among others.

"In a characteristically authentic poem, Gillian Wegener gives us the soul masquerading as a butterfly. 'Attaching the wings is the easy part,' she begins, preparing us for flight that takes different shapes in poem after poem. Whatever her subject--the natural world animated again and again by birds--or daily human settings--Wegener soars, delivering beautiful, heartfelt vistas with her sure knowing sight."

~ Barbara Ras, author of One Hidden Stuff

GILLIAN WEGENER works as a junior high English teacher in California’s Central Valley and lives with her husband and daughter in Modesto. Her poems have appeared in numerous journals, including Runes, English Journal, americas review, and In the Grove. A chapbook, Lifting One Foot, Lifting the Other was published by In the Grove Press in 2001, and she was awarded a top prize by the Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Foundation for 2006.

from The Opposite of Clairvoyance

"Reflection"

So you have trouble shifting,
have trouble, are troubled,
you can’t quite manage how to make the leap,
even if it is not a leap really, but just a step,
or not even that, maybe a sitting up rather
than a lying down. Yes, if you have trouble
because you imagined her face so differently,
and now she is in front of you and her hair
is not even close to the fine perfection
you carried in your mind, not the auburn
you had pictured, and her eyes are misaligned
but so slightly it’s not worth mentioning. And
now she is in front of you, right here in front of you,
and you are married, and in the other room
of this house that you always thought would be
bigger and more rustic, in the other room, there is
a child whom you assumed would play the cello,
or at least the guitar, but mostly the kid
seems to stare out the window. The kid is a dreamer.
And that wasn’t the plan. And you go off to work
every day and stare at yourself staring back at yourself
in the train window and are surprised because,
boy-oh-boy, is it hard to make the shift between
all that you imagined (you were a dreamer) and
all that really is, and could that really be you...
the guy with the tie and the crow’s feet and the glasses
in which there is an even smaller reflection of you
staring back in disbelief.

a handful of books i recommend

2008-09-09T17:06:00.000-07:00

* * * *

Philip Levine Prize in Poetry. Deadline is September 30, 2008. $1,500 and publication by Anhinga Press. Dorianne Laux judges. More details here.

christine son, novelist

2008-09-08T21:20:00.001-07:00

New novel, just out last month---Off the Menu, by Christine Son.

you are here

leeherrick.wordpress.com

Here Is a Pen: An Anthology of West Coast Kundiman Poets

Kundiman - Achiote Press - PAWA Readings, Sept. 17 & Sept. 19

Michael Luis Medrano's Born in the Cavity of Sunsets Forthcoming from Bilingual Review Press

Philip Levine Prize in Poetry

East Coast Readings

Barbara Jane Reyes at Harriet

A Letter from Ken Chen, Executive Director of the Asian American Writers' Workshop

Sonya Chung's Long For This World

New Poetry and Fiction at In the Grove

International Incheon Women Artists' Biennale, 8.1 through 8.31.2009

Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Arrested -- This is Wrong

Title for the second book manuscript

2009 Philip Levine Poetry Book Prize

Historic step for adoptee rights, adoptees urge full inclusion in adoption law revision process

New Blog

Writing Workshops With Kim Sunée in Florida

Congratulations to Ken Chen, Recipient of the 2009 Yale Series of Younger Poets Award

Summer Writing and Reading

from Oliver De La Paz, I learned about this

Dual Citizenship for Korean Adoptees

Zee Avi

Jason Lytle's Yours Truly, The Commuter

Happy Asian-Pacific American Heritage Month!

Coming Soon! A Special Issue of Korean-born Poets and Writers, Guest Edited by Lee Herrick

Gillian Wegener and Lee Herrick Poetry Reading

Mitch Hedberg

Timothy Yu's New Book

"Poet Lee Herrick's reading addresses real issues"

Rincon

Yes, I'm Serious

Grandbois

Great News for a Friday

Ed Bok Lee's "Returns"

Peter Everwine, April 2, 2009 in Fresno

yes, they got a little strange after their third record and yes, they were a bit self-indulgent, but i still love this group .

Poem taken

Paul's Boutique, 20 Year Anniversary

Some News from this City and the Towns Around It

20 Poetry Books That I Love Meme

Poet Kim Ki-Taek in Minnesota

Thursday, February 19 @ Full Circle Brewery

Brilliant Music

Brilliant

Brilliant

Lee Herrick on KFCF 88.1 fm this Thursday

Random Photos

Elizabeth Alexander on Barack Obama --- Poetry and Obama's Respect for the Power of Language

DAY ONE: A Funky Inuagural Getdown, Tuesday, January 20, 2009 at the Starline

Q and A: Facts, Probably: Lee Kwang Soo, born in Daejeon, Korea, December 1970 and adopted to the United States on October 12, 1971

National Book Awards -- Winners Announced

November

Young Jean Lee

Herrick in Fullerton, CA on Election Day, November 4

October

jason lytle "sew low" album due in 2008

Life ain't nothin but a good groove, a good mix tape to put you in the right mood

Javier Huerta Blogs at the Harriet, the Poetry Foundation Blog

Fatherhood Joy

Gillian Wegener Poetry Reading at Fresno City College

a handful of books i recommend

christine son, novelist