2011 Kundiman Faculty Jon Pineda, Kimiko Hahn, and Karen An-hwei Lee

From June 15th-19th, two Lantern Review staff members (Editor Iris A. Law and Staff Writer Henry W. Leung) attended the 2011 Kundiman Poetry Retreat at Fordham University in New York City.  What follows are our reflections on our experiences there.

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I. Iris

A few weeks ago, I stepped out of a D train in the Bronx and trundled my suitcase up the hill toward my very first Kundiman Retreat. Fordham Road greeted me with its jumble and racket: taxis honked their way down the street; motorcycles revved; teenagers laughed over the tinkling of a Mr. Softee van; shop owners shouted from behind racks of merchandise that spilled colorfully onto the sidewalk; a child descended uneasily from a bus and promptly vomited on the pavement. It felt strange to enter the gated, manicured space of the Rose Hill campus—ostrich-like; irresponsible, almost. But once swaddled into this beautifully (even eerily) verdant setting, it was also difficult not to feel that this was a space that in some way enacted the purpose of Kundiman: a place in which the creative soul could clear space within itself so that new patches of greenness could be sown and take root—not in isolation from the world, but in juxtaposition with, and in the context of, the world. I was reminded of something that I’d read in an interview Sarah Gambito gave to The Fordham Observer. In order to write in New York, she remarks, she tries “to be as still as [she] can in the city.” Indeed, to be a writer is to live in a position of simultaneous privilege and responsibility. As participants in social communities, we hold a responsibility to live fully in the world, so that we can write into, for, and from those communities. But at the same time, the work of the writer cannot be completed without the ability to occasionally take a step back: to be a still, small, open receptacle to the world, but a simultaneous processor of that world. And the lens with which we process—with which we must enact our craft—requires, from time to time, the ability to allow ourselves space to wrestle with the work itself, and with the world surrounding the work.

Fellows Jane Wong, Tarfia Faizullah, and Cathy Linh Che

I shared during Closing Circle (the final, reflective gathering of the weekend) that—as cliché as it may sound—the retreat felt like a gift to me. I came to New York expecting to take a step back from the world in order to write and to be in the presence of other writers; to expend great swaths of time developing projects; to workshop; and to make some engaging new friendships with other Asian American poets. But my experience of the retreat was, in fact, more like a step deeper into the experience of being a writer in the world—of being a poet in context.

Kundiman felt like a gift to me—as a writer, and as an Asian American-identified poet—not solely because of the writing I was able to do and the people that I met, but because I came away from the weekend feeling deeply nourished. Throughout the weekend, I was constantly being given small treasures—little tokens of wisdom, practical help, assurance, goodwill—by the faculty, by the staff, by the other fellows. Timothy Yu offered his advice and his ear (and gave up the chance to eat his dinner in peace) one evening when he allowed me to grill him about PhD programs in literature; Karen An-hwei Lee listened to me and offered me wisdom about faith and writing; Jon Pineda shared insights about envisioning pause and pacing in a manuscript; Kimiko Hahn opened the weekend with the invitation to “give ourselves permission” and encouraged us to make our writing time precious, even if that time was limited to ten minutes in the parking lot every morning; Sarah Gambito shared earnestly and encouragingly about the struggles she’d gone through while adjuncting; Oliver de la Paz offered advice about setting priorities in teaching and writing, and helped me to shape the jumble of vaguely-related poems that had grown out of my thesis into a new vision for a manuscript. There were practical gifts: a submissions spreadsheet model from Oliver de la Paz; leads on job opportunities from several of the fellows; the suite of prompts that Kimiko Hahn led us in creating and sharing during my last workshop; the insightful, concrete feedback that my home group gave me; the exquisite corpse poem the fellows secretly created as a thank-you for the staff. And there were immaterial gifts, too: the courage of the poems shared during salon; the river song that Misha Chowdhury sang to open the reading; the warmth, generosity and humility present amongst the members of my workshop group as they carefully critiqued each fellow’s work.

Fellows Annie Won, Kristine Uyeda, and Hong-Thao Nguyen

I left the weekend feeling full: with a renewed sense of purpose both for myself as an artist, and for the editorial vision of LR. Over and over again, I was reminded of our self-imposed imperative to curate a publication space in which the crazy, slippery thing that we call “Asian American poetry” can be simultaneously performed and interrogated. As Kimiko Hahn remarked during Timothy Yu’s presentation on the literary history of Asian American poetry, when we try to talk about what Asian American poetry is, we often end up “finding more of a description than a definition.“

Tim Yu, Monica Ong, Matthew Olzmann, Jane Wong, and Oliver de la Paz at the final Salon of the retreat

Indeed, that is exactly what Mia and I constantly wrestle with whenever we vision for LR. How, we ask ourselves, can we provide a space that is descriptive rather than prescriptive, messy rather than precise, illuminative rather than obscurative? A space that, in other words, enables the playing-out of central questions about the relationship between poetry and community.  As Sarah Gambito remarked during Closing Circle, “The poet needs to be able to see and write what our communities can’t say or do. How can a community see if the poets don’t?”

But the call to transformative illumination extends far beyond the work of the individual poet, or even the work of the editor. To quote Sarah once again: “Illuminative living, clear-sighted living, joyful living. That’s what a poem is.”

“Take the light back,” she urged us. And so that’s what I’m doing here.

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II. Henry

Kundiman means “love song.” Joseph Legaspi noted in an assignment to my workshop home group: “They say every poem is a love poem. Is it? Kundiman is a love poem. It is.” Sarah Gambito said at our Lincoln Center reading, “What is the truth? Our story, on our terms.” Jennifer Chang sent us a letter for Opening Circle that included this exhortation and reminder: “Be the poem you want to write. Then write it.” I was reminded of Jacqueline Woodson who wrote some years ago, “Name all the people / You’re always thinking about / People are poems.” And of an old friend arguing with pre-med students that medicine only delays death, but poetry—“Poetry saves lives.”

How far we’ve come from T.S. Eliot’s occlusive “Tradition” and from self-denying High Modernism! Wordsworth, I have read, tried for a while to speak in verse, grafting poetic form onto his conversations throughout the day. It was a failed, pretentious experiment. What if, instead, he had met this year’s Kundiman Fellows and understood that one need only live in verse? That, in the end, poetry’s bottom line is not adroitness but acquaintance?

Fellows Matthew Olzmann, Duy Ba Doan, and Sonia Mukherji

When we gathered in the lounge of O’Hare Hall, the usually softspoken Karen An-hwei Lee shouted that we were “Hot lava!” It’s no wonder the themes arising from this Kundiman Retreat melted a boundary between the poet and the poem—that estrangement we effect when we’re afraid to invest and represent ourselves in language. We spoke endlessly of permissions and fearlessness. The honey badger, which suffers bee stings and snake bites even as it chews its meals, was a kind of mascot. In our poems and conversations, we shared intimacies in a spirit that “confessional” poetry today often lacks in its sensationalism: a spirit of sanctity, of trust in the listener, of trust in the absolution. Graduating Fellow Helene Achanzar told us that she couldn’t sleep at night—she felt so known, so filled with joy, she didn’t want that vitality to end. I felt the same way, and as the Kundiman Retreat capped off a year of many transitions for me, I thought: We frequently change (Miles Davis: “I have to change, it’s like a curse”) but how often do we get to awaken?

It was a privilege to work with instructors Kimiko Hahn, Karen An-hwei Lee, and Jon Pineda. A privilege to workshop with Matthew Olzmann, graduating Fellow and winner of the Kundiman Poetry Prize, whose humor and wisdom were equally instructive. A surprise and privilege to meet Esther Lee, whose book I’d reviewed before I knew I’d meet her, and to see her process. A privilege to learn from all the adjuncts and professionals who are making it in the “real world,” and from Fulbright scholar-poets Misha Chowdhury, Tarfia Faizullah, and Jane Wong. A blessing to workshop with Carolyn Ho, who read my poems with more acuity than anyone I’ve known.

Henry with Helene Achanzar, Sandra Yee, and Vikas Menon

But illuminated craft was the least of the gifts I received from Kundiman; casting beyond it, Oliver de la Paz completely reframed my perspective on publication. (In fact, I was sketching Keating Hall from a park bench as I waited for our meeting, and when he called me over to his bench, I noted how different the building looked after a walk of just thirty feet). For the longest time I’ve been angry and anxious about the system in place, the way that submitting work to journals and contests can be a sordid rolling of the bones. I was worried about making a living out of my writing; he taught me instead to make a life out of it. He described publication as a part of the writing process, a way to find out if your work is ready—and if so, ready for whom, for what audience? In other words, what homes will you find for your poems and for yourself?

I have never felt so grounded as a writer, so sure of my place. I no longer need to identify as a writer of Asian American background in protest of being misunderstood; I can now identify as such knowing I have been understood, and can again, and because I have a love song to write. Once community has been found, the pressure of the citizen-poet seems to change from filling in negative or margin space to celebrating an open space. Since before Romanticism, our culture has been obsessed with the figure of the individual genius. But, in language, how much can we claim belongs to the individual? I place myself in a larger Asian American neighborhood believing that brilliance is a collaborative, fortunate, even miraculous, lifelong accumulation of words and their joy, of words and their grotesqueness.

Sarah Gambito and Joseph Legaspi, Kundiman Founders

And I hold that poetry is not a duty. Duties are burdens. It’s a commonplace to say that artists and creators are products of their communities. But we are entering an internet eternity of uncertain ownership (in a wireless society, what does it mean to belong or be dispossessed?), and though the universe may be contracting, it is only getting more complex. Today, we get to will our communities into being; we get to nurture our sources of nurture. As Kimiko Hahn said at the reading, “Who says you can’t choose your family?” During the third-year Fellows’ graduation, they were given turtle charms as a symbol, for the turtle carries its home on its back everywhere; and now we, too, have a home to carry forth. I want to end this with love and respect for the Kundiman Fellowship and its community, for Kundiman means “love song,” and fellowship means we are all in this boat together.

Asylum | Quan Barry | University of Pittsburgh Press (2001)

Recommended by Mia: “My holiday reading pick . . . it’s her first collection.  Her engagement with the voices and subjects of the Vietnam War is beautifully executed, and though the scope of her work is much broader, I was most riveted by her ‘war’ poems.”

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Behind My Eyes | Li-Young Lee | W.W. Norton & Company (2008)

Recommended by Iris: “This is Lee’s most recent collection — and it is stunning, as always.  Figurations of the Virgin Mary intertwine with moving landscapes, conversations between the poet and his wife, the transitory spaces of travel, a chance vision of the poet’s father; all hang in a delicate, almost sacred, lumen, suspended somewhere between heaven and earth.  Each poem breathes with an expansiveness and a grave tenderness that only Lee knows how to render. Behind My Eyes is sold with a CD of the poet reading some the poems in the book, and I highly recommend listening to this, as well.  I had the privilege of hearing Lee read from his drafts for this book a few years before it came out, and loved the way that the intonation of his voice seamed through the lines of each poem, threading them together in a low, sonorous hum.  It’s a beautiful listening experience, and adds a new and lovely textural dimension to his already melodious poetics.”

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Call Me Ishmael Tonight | Agha Shahid Ali | W.W. Norton & Company (2003)

Recommended by Supriya: “This collection of ghazals shows the versatile ways in which a poetic form can go beyond its history and language while staying true to its essence. Agha Shahid Ali demonstrates the intentionality with which he overcomes expectations and boundaries by using a traditional form that often evokes feelings of longing and melancholia but writing in a contemporary English that feels timeless. Although written entirely in form, the range and depth of this collection allows for a vast expanse of emotions and possibilities and is the perfect collection with which to curl up whatever your mood.”

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A Gesture Life | Chang-rae Lee | Penguin USA (2000)

Recommended by Ada: “Told from the point of view of Dr. Hata, a Japanese WWII veteran, this fictional memoir weaves between his experiences in a crumbling outpost of a Japanese imperial outpost in the last days of the war and his later life in gated, suburban America. The protagonist in Lee’s second novel is so reasonable it’s eerie, and though I think that we are meant to feel sorry for Dr. Hata and the stiffly respectable, appropriately understated life he has bound himself into, the distance that separates him from all the other characters in this book translates into distance from the reader. Not that the whole book left me cold: the scenes describing Dr. Hata’s encounters with Korean comfort women during the war are eye-opening, gripping, and an interesting perspective on the terrors of war.”

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We also highly recommend any of the titles that we’ve featured in our posts to date.  Some notables:

• The Heart’s Traffic (Ching-In Chen; Arktoi Press 2009)
  [as featured in Supriya Misra's review]
• Juan Luna’s Revolver (Luisa Iglora; UND Press 2008)
  [as featured in our interview with Luisa Igloria]
• Imago (Joseph Legaspi; CavanKerry Press 2007)
  [as featured in Ada Yee's interview with Joseph Legaspi]
• Look We Have Coming to Dover! (Daljit Nagra, Faber & Faber 2007)
  [as featured in Mrigaa Sethi's critique of the poem "Darling and Me!"]
• Half-Lit Houses (Tina Chang; Four Way Books 2004)
  [as featured in Stephen Sohn's post about Four Way]
• Sediment (Sandy Tseng; Four Way Books 2009)
  [as  featured in Stephen Sohn's post about Four Way]
• World Ball Notebook (Sesshu Foster; City Lights 2009)
  [as featured in this post, and in our post about the 2009 Asian American Literary Awards]
• Beasts for the Chase (Monica Ferrell; Sarabande Books 2008)
  [as featured in our post about the 2009 Asian American Literary Awards]
• An Aquarium (Jeffrey Yang; Graywolf  Press 2008)
  [as featured in our post about the 2009 Asian American Literary Awards]

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Please help support poets and the presses that publish them by considering picking up one or two of these titles as something to keep you occupied on that long plane ride, as a gift for a literature-loving friend, or simply as a winter afternoon treat.  What else is on your reading list for the holidays?  Comment and let us know!

Joseph O. Legaspi

Joseph O. Legaspi is the author of Imago (CavanKerry Press), winner of a Global Filipino Literary Award. He lives in New York City and works at Columbia University. A graduate of New York University’s Creative Writing Program, his poems appeared and/or are forthcoming in American Life in Poetry, World Literature Today, PEN International, North American Review, Callaloo, Bloomsbury Review, Poets & Writers, Gulf Coast, Gay & Lesbian Review, and the anthologies Language for a New Century (W.W. Norton) and Tilting the Continent (New Rivers Press). A recipient of a poetry fellowship from the New York Foundation for the Arts, he co-founded Kundiman (www.kundiman.org), a non-profit organization serving Asian American poets.  Visit him at www.josepholegaspi.com.

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LR: So where did the idea for Kundiman come from, and what unique purpose does it have in the Asian American writing community?

JL: It really started off as kind of the infamous BBQ story. [Co-founder] Sara Gambito had invited me to an aunt’s place—the term of endearment, no blood relation—and we were sitting on hammocks, eating charred meat, amazed how this group of people was so comfortable together, like family. It just hit us. We had both struggled upon graduating from MFAs: we had tried finding communities but were both at a loss. I told her about Cave Canem, which is a home for African American writers. We thought, why not do this for ourselves, for Asian American poets?

Unlike umbrella organizations for a lot of different writing, Kundiman is more focused towards poetry. Because the Asian American umbrella is very complicated, we try to vary the retreat ethnically, by age, and stylistically: we’ve had Myung Mi Kim, who is a very experimental poet; Rick Barot, who is a formalist and narrative poet; and Staceyann Chin, who is a spoken word poet. We don’t want to shun anyone. Remember that Sarah and my initial experience was that we felt excluded. So that’s what we try to do–create a space.

LR: Kundiman’s main event is its workshop, to which fellows apply, and where they meet other Asian American writers. What effect have you seen on the writers who go through it?

JL: From the six years we’ve done the workshop, we’ve seen our emerging poets not only develop as writers, but become successful at pursuing academic careers. A high percentage of them have been getting into MFA programs. Others are pursuing Ph.D.s.

But we are seeing other kinds of development. We will sometimes have 20-year-old undergraduates, and I think having a community like this, they know that there are people like them, this is not some unicorn, not something mystical: this is something they can do and they can love poetry and it’s okay.

LR: Can joining a community tangibly change someone’s writing style?

JL: I have one person in mind, whose work was very unstructured. When we review applications, we look not only at craft, but process and potential. This person came to the retreat and was just how we imagined—great person, but very out there. By the end of the retreat, this person’s work was much more reflective, just in those four or five days. Not only did this person manage to make use of form, but for the first time, used images that hearkened from his background as a Filipino American, which I didn’t see before. There were a couple of other Filipino Americans there, and seeing how those other Filipino poets handled and carried themselves I think caused this person to tone down.

LR: So there is a tangible change–it does have an effect to be around other Asian American poets.

JL: It really does have an effect. A lot of people will say, “When I’m here, I don’t have to explain myself.” I think that speaks volumes.

LR: It seems at this point in time there have been many Asian American poets that have been successful—you bring many of them into your workshop. Even with these role models, are there more ways to go for Asian American writers?

JL: I think we’re at this juncture where there are Asian American poets that are second or third generation, and willing to take a risk and pursue something creatively–something marginalized, like poetry. But I also think a lot of Asian Americans are writing, and we’re so thankful for those individuals who led the way. There are those who have struggled in ways probably far more complicated than I myself can even really understand, establishing identity. For example, for [former Kundiman faculty] Lawson Inada, just being visible was such a struggle: being of Japanese American descent, a young lad interned with his family. I feel Kundiman creates a space where young emerging American Asian poets can have access to these amazing individuals who have a lot to give.

LR: Earlier you talked about the diversity of the Asian American community. Is there anything unifying it? Is there a way to define Asian American poetics?

JL: Poetry with a capital “P” is definitely what unifies us. Is there any unifying style? No. We’re not writing about our grandmother’s anymore, or not solely that.

LR: Moving a little into your own work. In your book Imago, you wrote about your childhood. Why did you decide to start there for your first book?

JL: I don’t think I did. I feel it was kind of inevitable that I would write about my childhood. I came to America when I was twelve, and I think the transition—I can even call it the shock—of immigrating from the motherland was really character building, I think. I was also the first person in my household to have left home for college. I felt I lost some part of me, so it was an active reclaiming. I felt that I needed to chronicle what happened.

I also feel like every life is worthy of being mythologized, and so this was an active self-mythologizing. I think poetry is just such a great medium for that.

LR: What do you mean by mythologizing?

JL: I’ve always been fascinated by creationist myths. It was my childhood literature; I loved Genesis. In a way, I’m poking fun at myself. But in a way every life is important. Now, once its transferred to paper, it is your life but its not your life anymore. Its art now, or so you hope.

LR: Or you’re hoping other people will access it and relate to it.

JL: Exactly. When it’s published, its out of your hands, and you’re hoping people can get something out of what you’ve done. The whole self-mythologizing is how I can make my life, in a way, “better”–more magical than it really is. In a way that makes it literature and not journalism.

LR: Do you think that writing about the past and our personal histories is in any way more important to Asian Americans, immigrants or minorities?

JL: Yes and no. I’m leaning towards yes, because I feel like at this point, Asian American writers are still very much underrepresented in the media, in literature, in publishing. Publishing is hard for Asian American poets: once you have the Jhumpa Lahiris, publishers don’t want to go beyond the Jhumpa Lahiris. In a way there is still plenty of room to be filled by our stories, by the Asian American diaspora.

But then again, why do we always have to write about Asian American issues? We don’t.

LR: Do you have advice for young Asian American writers, how they can promote Asian American community?

JL: Just persist on writing. I know so many talented writers across cultural lines who just stop writing. In a way, it becomes an endurance game. So just continue writing our stories.

Support other Asian American writers. Buy their books, go to their readings, teach Asian American literature. Be community leaders, be in academia, be community activists. The more of us out there, the better.

But definitely, the root of it is, just keep writing. Sit down at that desk, and tackle that blank page.

LR: Any upcoming Kundiman events to mention?

JL: The only thing brewing is the Kundiman Prize. It is such an amazing opportunity for an Asian American writer. It’s the first one, and we want to make it a success. We need to mobilize and support one another in this venture.