AAWW Radio: New Asian American Writers & Literature

We’re bringing you another episode of Poetry Potluck featuring audio from our favorite AAWW poetry events and showcasing exciting poets of the moment. In Poetry Potluck 3, we celebrate Emily Jungmin Yoon’s debut collection of poetry, A Cruelty Special to our Species. As the Poetry editor for The Margins, Emily has cultivated a special home for Asian American poetry in all its richness, and we’re thrilled to celebrate her collection.

Emily Jungmin Yoon collects testimony and confronts history in her debut collection, A Cruelty Special to Our Species. The poems in this book are records of earthly and human violence—the sexual slavery of Korean comfort women, lives lost during natural disasters, and the everyday, accumulating ways that women hurt and are made to silently accept that pain. These are poems deeply invested in the minutiae of language, how one word leads to the next, connecting sound, rhythm, and meaning between languages, poets, and women.

She has invited three poets to read alongside her; Wo Chan, Sueyeun Juliette Lee, and Kristin Chang. They read poems about friendship on mushrooms, a roast duck elegy to restaurant families, and environmental erotica about condensation.

Here’s programs assistant Tiffany Tran Le, who introduces each writer. Thanks for listening.

In Poetry Potluck 2, we have Vivek Shraya and Fatimah Asghar, who read from their poetry books I’m Afraid of Men and If They Come For Us.

In Vivek Shraya’s I’m Afraid of Men, she explores how masculinity was imposed on her as a boy and continues to haunt her as a girl, and contemplates how we might reimagine gender for the twenty-first century. Vanity Fair writes, “Vivek Shraya transforms her long-festering fears of men into cultural rocket fuel … Shraya’s dispatches from the frontlines of life as a queer, trans woman of color are frequently illuminating, painfully honest, and, in spite of everything, hopeful.”

If They Come For Us is Fatimah Asghar’s debut poetry collection, where she captures her experience as a Pakistani Muslim woman in contemporary America, exploring identity, inheritance, and healing. The Library Journal writes, “Her story sweeps wide, becoming the history of India, Partition, genocidal hatred, and timeless misogyny. In the telling, she moves freely in form.”

Has your superstitious grandma ever told you myths that you haven’t been able to forget? In this episode of AAWW Radio, we have critically acclaimed cartoonist and Last Night’s Reading creator Kate Gavino, who has invited some of her favorite writers to read short stories about Asian grandmas. Kate Gavino’s new graphic novel Sanpaku explores the Japanese myth through the eyes of Marcine, an impressionable Filipina preteen who lives for her grandmother’s eccentric stories. She is joined by The Verge's Angela Chen, Little A editor Vivian Lee, Catapult's Matt Ortile, and editor and author Rakesh Satyal-- and together they share stories about their grandmothers, and all the feelings of love, loss, and guilt that come with them.

The Incendiaries is a dark, glittering, and obsessive new novel from R.O. Kwon. It’s a fractured love story, a inside look at a campus cult, and a literary thriller. It’s also already a bestseller.

The Incendiaries follows the journey of a Korean American college student who falls under the spell of grief. As she finds new love, she’s also lured to violence in a Christian cult tied to North Korea. 

R.O. Kwon spoke with Alexander Chee, author of Edinburgh, The Queen of the Night, and the new essay collection How to Write an Autobiographical Novel. R.O. told him about growing up Korean and Christian, and shares an unpopular opinion: that books should be shelved with the spine facing inwards. She also talks about losing her faith, both in religion and in art.

In this episode of AAWW Radio, join us as four authors—Lee Herrick, Tracy O’Neill, Matthew Salesses, and Sung J. Woo-read from new books that grapple with the realities of adoption, broken families, and the journeys we take to find out where we belong. The authors discuss the identity politics that go hand-in-hand with having a white name and a Korean self, small victories when it comes to adoptee visibility in everyday life, and the importance of seeing your own reflection. This conversation is moderated by Shinhee Han, who teaches Asian American literature at Columbia University and has written extensively on transnational adoption.

This event was co-sponsored by Also Known As, Sejong, and FCCNY.

In 2016, we hosted the New York launch of Scholar Christine Bacareza Balance’s book Tropical Renditions: Making Musical Scenes in Filipino America, a vital exploration of post-WWII Filipinx literary and musical culture. In this episode of AAWW Radio, we’ll hear Christine read from her book as she asks, “How do Filipinos make music? And what else do these acts of music making do?” Opening for Christine is former AAWW Literary Award winner and Guggenheim Fellowship-winning poet Patrick Rosal, whose poetry and essays channel DJ culture, family history, and community to explore vital questions about race in America. Afterwards, they have a conversation moderated by novelist Jessica Hagedorn, author of Toxicology and former bandleader of The Gangster Choir. Together they discuss Pinoy DJs and turntabling (Shout out to DJ Qbert), the act of disobedient listening, and how immigrant parents remix their lives in order to survive.

Two years ago on this month, we celebrated the release of Solmaz Sharif's award-winning debut poetry collection Look. Her poetry bears witness to, in the words of NPR, “war in the Middle East, the war on terror, the devastation ravaged upon families in the name of freedom.” Featuring poets and artists Mariam Ghani, Cathy Park Hong, Rickey Laurentiis, and Solmaz Sharif herself, they read from their work analyze state sponsored violence through language, form poems from redacted letters to people imprisoned in Guantanamo Bay, and parse what Rickey Laurentiis calls “the fault line from Ferguson to Palestine.” Moderated and introduced by AAWW Editorial Director Jyothi Natarajan.

In this episode of AAWW Radio, we’re celebrating the launch of Marianna’s Beauty Salon, Bushra Rehman’s debut poetry collection that captures the nuances and magic of growing up as a South Asian American femme in Queens. Bushra Rehman reads alongside writers Quincy Scott Jones, Sadia Shepard, and Jai Dulani. You’ll hear a hilarious story about a plane full of Pakistanis marooned in Charles De Gaulle airport, police brutality interpolated into James Brown lyrics, poetic reflections on resistance, and much more.

On this episode of AAWW Radio we hear from New York Times Hungry City columnist Ligaya Mishan, Number One Chinese Restaurant author Lilian Li, and Curry: Eating, Reading, and Race author Naben Ruthnum. They read from their work and have a conversation with writer and chef Rohan Kamicheril about "authentic" food, the power dynamics of cultural appropriation, and the role of food as a cultural gateway. Shout out to MSG.

In this episode of AAWW Radio, authors Yiyun Li and Porochista Khakpour discuss how depression and chronic illness have transformed their existence not only as writers, but as people. Author Elif Batuman guides us in a conversation exploring the relationship between trauma and physical illness, the authors’ influences, and for who they tell their stories.

Link to the video of this event on our YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/Epj7kP7gWKA