Appreciations to Teresa Chuc Dowell, who arranged our reading event at Barnes & Noble – Grossmont Center in La Mesa, San Diego for Saturday, November 20: Steve Kowit, Sandra Alcosser, Craig Cotter, Teresa Chuc Dowell, Karen An-hwei Lee, and Seretta Martin.
Together, our poems share a collective space in this anthology: Much gratitude to Lowell Jaeger for editing this project!
Poetry Magazine: November 2010
Larry Bradley · Billy Collins · Brooklyn Copeland · Jeramy Dodds · Miriam Bird Greenberg · Donald Hall · Nate Klug · Lance Larsen · Karen An-hwei Lee · Giacomo Leopardi · Rebecca Lindenberg · Dora Malech · Wesley McNair · Joshua Mehigan · Samuel Menashe · Christopher Shannon · Alan Shapiro · Derek Sheffield · Brian Swann · D. H. Tracy · David Yezzi
…and this is me: Poetry audio cast.
I’m enjoying Prageeta Sharma’s use of the word, “candor,” in the eponymous poem which appears in her collection, Infamous Landscapes. Here are tiny snippets:
Candor may have indeed arrived
. . .
Above the water, I have loved so much
that is unbearable to divulge
. . .
Of candor in the grass . . .
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Two poems by Tsering Wangmo Dhompa appear in the latest issue of Cerise, the gorgeous international e-journal edited by Sally Molini, Karen Rigby, and Fiona Sze. Here’s an excerpt:
from An invitation to a struggle
Consider the stories we tell, the moral
or meaning lost over time. Perhaps it is culture
hindering the dog from learning
good etiquette. Colour as a cause. Naturally,
in a volte-face we can say it is a native’s
compliment because we advertise
for a fairer tint. In stories of war
the other is chimera, a shapeless
behemoth in need of a lesson…
TSERING WANGMO DHOMPA
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Tsering Wangmo Dhompa is the author of three titles from Apogee Press: In the Absent Everyday (2005), Rules of the House (2002, finalist for the Asian American Literary Awards in 2003) and My rice tastes like the lake (forthcoming). A former fellow at MacDowell Colony and Hedgebrook, she was raised in the Tibetan exile communities of Nepal and India. She now lives in San Francisco.
Now available… my academic chapter on Korean martyr Yu Guan Soon in Transnationalism and the Asian American Heroine (originally titled Women Warriors: From Asia to Asian America), edited by Professor Lan Dong, University of Illinois. Click here to see the table of illustrious contents!
Sharing a psalm by a king and an apostle’s letter…
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“Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.” (Psalm 73:25-26)
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“I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do everything through God who gives me strength.” (Philippians 4:10-13)
Gratitudes: Christian Wiman and Don Share will discuss my work on an upcoming media cast for the Poetry Foundation in Chicago. Their project features my poems in an upcoming issue of Poetry Magazine, hence a recent visit to the radio station at the University of California, Irvine. Many thanks to Margaret, who arranged everything with the sound engineer. I’ll visit again next week.
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On the UCI campus, I was happy to see Li Po’s head restored! He’s in a garden off Aldrich Park, posed with three other Chinese poets & philosophers. Last time I visited UCI, the venerable head of our moon-in-the-lake poet was missing from his marble torso. Glad to see his new noggin intact!
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Written in Chinese, his “Li” is the same as my “Lee.” Though I, too, may lose my head while gazing at beautiful Aldrich Park in the center of the Irvine campus, I’m not sure whether we’re actually related, literally.
Prayers: For people, everywhere, who write poetry… inspiration through words, languages, and healing.
This weekend, with a team of wonderful students from my university, I will participate in the 5k walk-a-thon, “Making Strides against Breast Cancer.” The students organized a poetry writing event and a prayer night on the theme of healing journeys & spread the word themselves… such beautiful labors of the heart.
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Gifts I’ve received from students over a decade of teaching: chocolates, baked goodies, a giant pomegranate, red fish gummy-things, one grapefruit, three sunflowers, lavender bubble bath, floral writing notebooks, poetry collections, letters, cards, postcards, many hugs, bouquets of random flowers, and most of all, the realization of their dreams & successes. Now their enthusiastic participation in “Making Strides” is one more gift!
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Afterward, at home where no one can see or hear my, er, novice technique, I will play my cherrywood harp in honor of International Peace Hour, sponsored by Harpists for Peace.
Here’s my appreciative review of Texture Notes by Sawako Nakayasu. Many thanks to Colin & the good folks at Cutbank Literary Journal, University of Montana!
From me: “The latest collection by translator and poet Sawako Nakayasu, Texture Notes, features 48 original journal entries dated from 2003 to 2004, arranged in a variety of textures and rhythms. With echoes of Zukofsky poetics and Steinian word-play, Nakayasu explores the objectivist challenge of describing physical textures in the external world: bicycles, fresh laundry, love in the air….”
From Denise at Newpages: “Yes, We Are Still Dancing is the collaborative work of Susan Amstater, artist, Connie Dillman, artist, and Jacquelyn Stroud Spier, poet. The book is a project published in partnership with the Frontera Women’s Foundation (FWF), El Paso, Texas, dedicated to increasing resources and expanding opportunities for women, girls and their families who reside along the U.S./Mexico border. The mission of FWF is to improve the conditions and status of these women by fostering positive social and economic change through education, economic empowerment, improved health, and safety in their communities. All profits from this publication will be used to fund an arts and culture endowment to support those pursuing arts in the Borderland.”
KAREN AN-HWEI LEE 