Queens Poetry symposium: A Celebration of Asian-American Poetry and Poetics

The symposium features panelists of Asian-American poets who have written about their Asian/ mixed race identity in relation to theater and performance, worked with archives of declassified correspondences and photographs of war as a visual form, and in thinking about food as identity (the restaurant being one of the industries that did not exclude Asian-Americans). In confronting the legacy and continual racism of the American hegemony, the Asian American poets who have come of age under the shadow of war and the trauma of migration have contributed to the possibilities of American poetics. They have branched into prose poetry or even essays, L-A-N-G-U-A-G-E poetry and poetry as a visual form, the use of archival materials, including film and translation/ multilingualism/ translingualism in considering what it means to be of Asian-American. Hosted by Tiffany Troy. The featured panelists are Gauri Awasthi, Rhoni Blankenhorn, Nidhi Gandhi, Katarina La Poll, Kyle Liang, Blake Z. Rong, Marie La Viña, Diane Mehta, R.A. Villanueva, and Molly Zhu.

This project is a part of the What Can We Do? Artist Grant program, presented by Asian American Arts Alliance (A4) and is supported by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council. Special thanks to Council Members Christopher Marte and Sandra Ung.