Asian American Literature Today: Cathy Linh Che, Ocean Vuong, R.A. Villanueva & Eugenia Leigh
May 4, 2015 | Workshop 3-4 pm; Reading 4-5:30 pm
Mumford Room, sixth floor, James Madison Building, Library of Congress
Poets Cathy Linh Che, Ocean Vuong, R.A. Villanueva, and Eugenia Leigh will lead a workshop on poetry, early writing career development, and writing as poets of color, then read from their work and discuss the state of Asian American poetry today. Moderated by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center Initiative Coordinator and AALR editor Lawrence-Minh Bui Davis. Free to the public. Presented in partnership with the Library of Congress Poetry and Literature Center, The Asian American Literary Review (AALR), and the University of Maryland Asian American Studies Program.
Cathy Linh Che is the author of Split (Alice James, 2014), winner of the Kundiman Poetry Prize and the Norma Farber First Book Award from the Poetry Society of America. A Vietnamese American poet from Los Angeles and Long Beach, CA, she received her BA from Reed College and her MFA from New York University. She has received awards from Poets & Writers, Poets House, and The Jerome Foundation. She lives in Brooklyn.
Ocean Vuong is the author of Night Sky With Exit Wounds (Copper Canyon Press, 2016). A 2014 Ruth Lilly fellow, he has received honors from Kundiman, Poets House, The Civitella Ranieri Foundation, The Elizabeth George Foundation, The Academy of American Poets, and a 2014 Pushcart Prize. His poems appear in the New Yorker, Poetry, The Nation, Boston Review, Kenyon Review, TriQuarterly, Best New Poets 2014, and American Poetry Review, which awarded him the 2012 Stanley Kunitz Prize for Younger Poets. He lives in New York City.
R.A. Villanueva lives in Brooklyn and London. His debut collection of poetry, Reliquaria (U. Nebraska Press, 2014), won the Prairie Schooner Book Prize. His honors include the inaugural Ninth Letter Literary Award and fellowships from Kundiman and The Asian American Literary Review. New work is forthcoming in The Wolf (UK), Crazyhorse, and Five Points, and his writing has appeared in AGNI, Virginia Quarterly Review, and elsewhere. A founding editor of Tongue: A Journal of Writing & Art, he holds graduate degrees from Rutgers University and New York University.
Eugenia Leigh is the author of Blood, Sparrows and Sparrows (Four Way Books, 2014) and the Poetry Editor for Kartika Review. She is a Kundiman fellow who received her MFA in Poetry from Sarah Lawrence College.
Discussion