LR News: Happy APIA Heritage Month!

It’s Asian/Pacific Islander American Heritage month, which means that it’s once again time to celebrate on the Lantern Review Blog. This May, we’ll be picking up with two special series that we’ve run in previous years, in addition to posting our regular fare of interviews, columns, and reviews. Here’s a glance at what you can expect to see:

Process Profiles Series

Just as we’ve done in past Mays, we’ve asked several of our contributors to write short guest posts for us in which they reflect upon their processes for writing a poem of theirs that we’ve published.  This has always been one of our favorite series to run, and we hope that you’ll enjoy this year’s installments equally as much as those from years past.  A new Process Profile will be posted each week (usually on a Wednesday), every week, for the duration of May.

Curated Prompts

We had a lot of fun getting to work with our guest prompt-writers last May, so we’re thrilled to be able to continue our Curated Prompts series—in which we post writing exercises contributed by respected writers and teachers of Asian American poetry in lieu of our regular Friday Prompts—during this year’s APIA Heritage Month.  This year’s lineup begins with Karen An-hwei Lee, whose exuberant, weather-inspired exercise will appear on the blog this Friday, the 4th.

Issue 5 Reading Period to Open Mid-Month

We’ve been waiting to re-open our reading period, because we have a very special announcement to make about our next issue. All will be revealed in mid-May, when we will officially open our doors to submissions for Issue 5.

The Poetry Celebration Continues

We’re particularly lucky, in a sense, that Poetry Month and APIA Heritage Month are back to back, because it means that we have the opportunity to celebrate Asian American poetry for two months straight!  In addition to our May series, we will also be keeping April’s Digital Broadsides up on the blog, and will continue to post Pocket Broadsides on Tumblr. We hope that you’ll continue to share these projects far and wide as our celebration of Asian American poetry continues.

Many thanks, and a very happy May to you.

Iris & Mia

LR News: 2nd Exchanged Pocket Broadside on Tumblr

PB-EX_2
No. 2 (Margaret Emma Brandl) - Exchanged for a Pocket Broadside at AWP 2012

The second of the pieces that was given to us in exchange for Pocket Broadsides at AWP—a short poem by Margaret Emma Brandl—is now posted on Tumblr! Click here to read “February Sweet.”

To see all of the Pocket Broadsides that have been posted on Tumblr thus far, visit the project’s main page at pocketbroadsides.tumblr.com. To read each new piece as soon as it is posted, follow us on Tumblr, or subscribe to the RSS feed.

LR News: Ocean Vuong’s Pocket Broadside on Tumblr

Pocket Broadside #4 - Ocean Vuong
Pocket Broadside #4 - Ocean Vuong

Issue 1 contributor Ocean Vuong‘s Pocket Broadside, a miniature poem called “Mother Tongue,” is now on Tumblr!

To read all of the Pocket Broadsides that have gone up so far, please visit the project’s main page at pocketbroadsides.tumblr.com.

As always, we’d be grateful if you helped us spread the word by following, reblogging, tweeting, or Faceb00k-sharing.

LR News: Pocket Broadside by Aryanil Mukherjee on Tumblr

Pocket Broadside #3 - Aryanil Mukherjee
Pocket Broadside #3 - Aryanil Mukherjee

We’re pleased to announce that a Pocket Broadside by Issue 2 Contributor Aryanil Mukherjee—an excerpt from his book-length poem, “Dead Fish Buoy”—is now on Tumblr.  Please help us spread the word by following and/or re-blogging!

To see all of the Pocket Broadsides we’ve posted so far, please visit the project’s front page, at pocketbroadsides.tumblr.com.

LR News: 1st Exchanged Poem on Pocket Broadsides Tumblr

No. 1 (Carolyn) - Exchanged for a Pocket Broadside at AWP 2012
No. 1 (Carolyn) - Exchanged for a Pocket Broadside at AWP 2012

Happy Monday!  We’re pleased to announce that the first of the short pieces that were given to us at AWP in exchange for Pocket Broadsides is now posted on Tumblr.  Click here to view this miniature poem by Carolyn.

To see all of the Pocket Broadsides that have been posted on Tumblr thus far, visit the project’s main page at pocketbroadsides.tumblr.com. To read each new piece as soon as it is posted, follow us on Tumblr, or subscribe to the RSS feed.

LR News: Happy National Poetry Month!

PB 1 - Vanni Taing
Pocket Broadside #1 - Vanni Taing

April is National Poetry Month, and as usual, we are celebrating it on the LR Blog with two new special projects.

Digital Broadsides for National Poetry Month

Whereas in the past, we’ve run a prompt contest during April, this year, we’ve decided to do something a little different. Because, in our view, National Poetry Month is as much about encouraging the reading of poetry as it is about encouraging the writing of poetry, we wanted to produce a project that would enable the sharing of  Asian American poetry beyond the confines of our magazine and blog.  To that end, we’re thrilled to be able to announce our very first series of Digital Broadsides.  Every Friday during the month of April, in lieu of  a regular prompt, we’ll be offering a free, downloadable broadside featuring a poem that’s appeared in a past issue of LR.  Each broadside has been designed by a different Asian American artist (most of whom are also poets and LR contributors), and will be offered in two different formats: as a desktop wallpaper, which we hope will inspire you to write each time you open your computer,  and as an 8.5 x 11 printable .PDF, which we hope you’ll print out, post, and share.  You can look out for the first of the series—featuring poet/artist Debbie Yee‘s design for R.A. Villanueva’s poem “Vanitas” (from Issue 4)—this Friday, when we’ll release it on the blog.

Pocket Broadsides on Tumblr

The Pocket Broadsides project (about which I wrote extensively in my AWP reflection post) is now on Tumblr!  Since many of the Pocket Broadsides are miniature poems, we thought that April would be the perfect time to launch an online archive of the project. Starting today, we will be posting images of up to two pieces a week—of both the Pocket Broadsides we brought to AWP (in serial order), and the visitor-written pieces that we received in exchange.  The series kicks off with Pocket Broadside #1, a short poem by LR Issue 1 contributor, Vanni Taing.  At least through the month of April, we’ll be posting notices on the LR blog each time we post a new poem to Tumblr, but to read each Pocket Broadside as soon as it’s released, please add pocketbroadsides.tumblr.com to your list of RSS subscriptions. If you’re on Tumblr yourself, please follow us and re-post!

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That’s all of our special announcements for April.  We hope you’ll join us in helping to spread the word about Asian American poetry this month—both through the Digital Broadsides and by linking to and re-posting the Pocket Broadsides as they appear on Tumblr.

Do you have any special celebrations or project planned for National Poetry Month?  We’d love to hear about them.  Drop us a line in the comments or via e-mail.  If we like your project and you’re documenting it online, we’ll link to it on Facebook or Twitter, and maybe even post about it here!

LR News: LANTERN REVIEW at AWP 2012

It’s that time of year again, and now that Issue 4 has successfully launched, we’re on our way to AWP. There are a few different ways you can connect with us at this year’s conference, so read on and we’ll see you in Chicago!

1. AWP Bookfair: LANTERN REVIEW and the “Asian American Literary Collective”
This year we’ll be sharing a table at the bookfair with Kartika Review under the name “The Asian American Literary Collective.” This will be the best way to connect with us–so do drop by and say hello! Our table number is S16 and we’ll have information about an exciting new project (see below!) and as well as a number of other Asian American literary organizations and publications.

Continue reading “LR News: LANTERN REVIEW at AWP 2012” →

LR News: Issue 4 Has Landed!

LANTERN REVIEW Issue 4
LR Issue 4

We are extremely pleased to announce—at long last—the release of Issue 4 of Lantern Review!

Tipping the scales at a hefty 81 pages (if virtual pages could be weighed), this issue is—we feel—our best yet.  We’ve done things slightly differently this time, updating the look of our cover and choosing to include at least three substantial excerpts of longer projects or series, as well as a new media piece by Margaret Rhee (for which we broke our “no scrolling” rule).  We’ve also decided to intersperse a series of  black-and-white images by a single artist (Darwin Cruz) amongst the poems to serve as a sort of “thread” that runs throughout the body of the text, and have chosen to incorporate not just poetry, but also photography, into our Community Voices feature on “Double Exposures: Documenting War at Home” (a youth writing workshop that was held at the AAWW last summer).

Issue 4’s contributor list includes poets Neil Aitken, Bethany Carlson, Tarfia Faizullah, Janine Joseph, Monica Mody, Margaret Rhee, Purvi Shah, Sushil Sivaram, R.A. Villanueva, Bryan Thao Worra, and Timothy Yu, as well as photographer Darwin Cruz and teen artists Susan Li, Jenny Lu, and Kathy Tran.  “Double Exposures” teachers and administrators Anna Li Sian, Julie Jamora, Cathy Linh Che, and Solmaz Sharif also contributed the collaboratively-written introduction that begins the Community Voices section.

To enter the issue, click here, or on the cover image at the top left of this post.

We hope that you enjoy Issue 4, and would love to hear what you think of it—simply drop us a line at editors [at] lanternreview(dot) com to share your thoughts or to inform us of any technical issues that you might encounter while browsing.

Many thanks, as always, for your continued support of LR.

Peace and Light,

Iris & Mia
LR Editorial Board

LR News: Happy 2012!

It’s a new year, and we’re back from our holiday hiatus!  We’re working hard on sorting through submissions for Issue 4, and have an exciting next few weeks of posts lined up for the blog.  During the remainder of January, you can look forward to two interviews (one with Brenda Hillman, which will go live later this week, and one with Janine Oshiro), a couple of reviews (including one of the HWAC’s NY Times-lauded anthology How Do I Begin?), and more of our regular fare of prompts, column posts, and literary news.

In the meantime, we’ll be putting together the issue, and preparing to exhibit at this February’s AWP conference in Chicago, where we’ll be sharing a table with Kartika Review under the name “The Asian American Literary Collective.”  Planning on going to the conference this year?  Please let us know, or at least plan to stop by the table — we’d love to meet you in person!

Warm thoughts for a happy, healthy 2012,

Iris & Mia