[CW-Grad] Kundiman West Reading/Salon tonight (many UCR connections!)

[Ching-In Chen]

Dear all,

Some UCR MFA alums & present & incoming students are involved in this
event!  Hope to see you there to celebrate great poetry & wonderful
community organizations & please help us spread the word!

(There is food & drink to be had at this local community business too!)

xo,
Ching-In

*Kundiman West, Flying Fists Collective + Habi Arts *

invite you to a

*Kundiman Reading & Salon celebrating Asian American poetry!*


Featuring Melissa Roxas, Nicky Schildkraut, Ngoc Luu, Jackson Bliss, Oliver
de la Paz

+ a salon celebrating Asian American poetry (bring a poem by your favorite
Asian American poet + your own to share!)

Emceed by Neil Aitken & Ching-In Chen.

Wednesday, April 28, 2010 – 7-9pm

Casa Princesa

4527 York Blvd

Los Angeles, CA

(323) 474-6860

www.casaprincesa.com


$3 - 10 suggested donation -- to benefit Kundiman (no one turned away for
lack of funds).

*About Our Featured Readers:
Melissa Roxas* is a poet, writer, and human rights activist.  For the past
15 years, she has done community work in Southern California and in the
Philippines.  While conducting community health work in May of 2009, she was
abducted and tortured by the Philippine military.  This experience has
deepened her commitment to human rights work and to continue writing for
truth and justice.



*Nicky Schildkraut*’s poems have appeared in *Asian American Poetry and
Writing, Salmagundi, The New England Review, The Mississippi Review, The
Sante Fe Review Online*, the 2007 Korean-English anthology *I Didn’t Know
Who I Was*, and has prose poems in the March issue of *The Offending Adam*.
She is working on a Ph.D. degree in English Literature & Creative Writing at
the University of Southern California and currently serves as the President
for the Circle For Asian American Literary Studies.  She is also an incoming
Kundiman Fellow.



*Ngoc Luu* received her undergraduate degree in English at UC Berkeley and
completed her MFA in Creative Writing at UC Riverside. She was given a full
scholarship to attend the Summer Poetry in Idyllwild and participated in the
Kundiman Asian American Poetry Retreat during its inaugural year. She was
offered a merit scholarship to study in the Summer Literary Seminars in 2006
and the John Woods Scholarship from the Summer in Prague Program in 2004.
Additionally Ngoc has been published in the *Naranjas y Nopales* poetry
broadside.



Hailing from Chicago, *Jackson Bliss* is the winner of the La Vie de Bohème
Literary Award and the 2007 Sparks Prize in Fiction.  Jackson has lived in
Seattle, Portland, New York, West Africa and Argentina and is a former
Americorps and Peace Corp volunteer, crossing lines of longitude whenever he
can both in his writing, his volunteer service and his travels.  Armed with
a MFA from the University of Notre Dame, Jackson is now a PhD student in
Literature + Creative Writing at USC.  His short stories have been published
in *Fiction, Kenyon Review, ZYZZYVA, Notre Dame Review, Connecticut Review,
African American Review, Stand (UK), South Loop Review, Writers
Post-Journal, Ink Collective, Pittsburgh Quarterly, 3:am Magazine, Word
Riot, Fringe, DJ Booth* and *Denver Syntax*, among others.



*Oliver de la Paz* is the author of three collections of poetry, *Names
Above Houses, Furious Lullaby *(SIU Press 2001, 2007), and the
forthcoming *Requiem
for the Orchard* (U. of Akron Press 2010), winner of the Akron Prize for
poetry chosen by Martìn Espada. He co-chairs the advisory board of Kundiman,
a not-for-profit organization dedicated to the promotion of Asian American
Poetry. A recipient of a NYFA Fellowship Award and a GAP Grant from Artist
Trust, his work has appeared in journals like *Virginia Quarterly Review,
North American Review, Tin House, Chattahoochee Review,* and in anthologies
such as *Asian American Poetry: The Next Generation*. He teaches at Western
Washington University.


*About Our Emcees:*
*Ching-In Chen* is the author of *The Heart's Traffic* (Arktoi Books/Red Hen
Press). The daughter of Chinese immigrants, she is a Kundiman, Macondo and
Lambda Fellow.

*Neil Tangaroa Aitken *is the author of* The Lost Country of Sight* and a
Kundiman Fellow.  Neil serves as the editor of *Boxcar Poetry Review*, an
online literary journal focused on publishing poetry and showcasing reviews
and interviews pertaining to first books of poetry.


*About Our Organizations:
The Flying Fists Collective* is a crew of talented Asian-American writers,
poets, photographers, graphic novelists + artists around the world. We
believe three simple things: 1.  There needs to be more Asian art in the
world.  2.  Culturally speaking, art is crucial in the world.  3.  Art needs
to kick (your) ass in some way.  Based out of Southern California, the  FFC
is now a global organization open to all people that want to interact with,
contribute to, and help support Asian art in all of its forms.

* *

*Habi Arts* is a Los Angeles-based Filipino cultural organization dedicated
to promoting community empowerment and progressive social change through the
arts. www.habi-arts.org



*Kundiman* is an organization dedicated to the creation, cultivation and
promotion of Asian American poetry by creating an affirming and rigorous
space where Asian American poets can explore, through art, the unique
challenges that face the new and ever changing diaspora. In order to help
mentor the next generation of Asian-American poets, Kundiman sponsors an
annual Poetry Retreat for emerging Asian American poets.
http://kundiman.squarespace.com/
-- 
~~~~~
Ching-In Chen
THE HEART'S TRAFFIC (Arktoi Books/Red Hen Press 2009)
http://www.arktoi.com/books/heart.shtml
http://www.redhen.org/RedHenPress.html#/catalog/catalog
www.chinginchen.com
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.ucr.edu/pipermail/cwgrad-announcements/attachments/20100428/c9ef5e37/attachment.html