January News

NEW BOOKS:
Pramila Venkateswaran's new collection of poetry "Behind Dark Waters" (Plain View Press) comes out this month. The enclosed poems explore women's lives and issues from around the globe. Reviews of the book include those by poet Karen Swenson, who calls the poems "fierce" and "daring," and poet Saleem Peeradina who describes the book as a "a thoughtful, witty, dramatic, and provocative collection." Available from Amazon and Plain View Press.

READINGS:
A Unique Evening with Four South Asian Writers
Thursday 29 January: 7:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m.
Redwood City Public Library will be hosting a reading including short-story writer and translator Moazzam Sheikh and three of our anthology's poets (Tanuja Mehrotra, Neela Banerjee and Pireeni Sundaralingam).
Redwood City Public Library
1044 Middlefield Rd.
Redwood City, CA 94063
(650) 780-7058

Delhi International Literary Festival
Many congratulations to our poet Sudeep Sen for masterminding the first festival of its kind in Delhi a few weeks ago. International luminaries included: Tomaz Salamun, Arthur Sze, Mimi Khalvati, Jane Draycott and Fred D'Aguiar.

TOURS:
Poet and editor Ravi Shankar is on tour with the poetry anthology "Language for a New Century: poetry from the Middle East, Asia and Beyond" (Norton, 2008) which includes several of our poets, including Meena Alexandar, Khazim Ali, Sudeep Sen, Vijay Seshadri and Pireeni Sundaralingam. Readings for the book include a book launch and party, sponsored by PEN, at Theosophy Hall in Bombay, as well as readings in Chennai (14 January), Singapore (16 January) and in the Philippines at the University of Manila (19 January).

WORKSHOPS:
P3: The Postcard Poetry Project with Debbie Yee and Bushra Rehman
Working with writers and artists in San Francisco and New York City, our very own Bushra Rehman will be teaching students to create original works of postcard art and poetry with a view to exchanging them with fellow artists on the opposite coast. The workshop will culminate in a public reading on both coasts and a publication consisting of the poet-artists' portfolio of work. The workshop is co-sponsored by two Asian American artists organizations: Kearny Street Workshop (SF) and Asian American Writers' Workshop (NYC).
Meetings: Mondays, Feb 2 through Mar 23, 7:00 - 9:00pm
Website: http://www.kearnystreet.org/programs/calendar/2009_1.html

MISSING: Best Poetry of 2008 Lists

Happy New Year! We hope that 2009 will be filled with perfect line breaks, abundant and truthful metaphors and rollicking onomatopoeia.

But before we forget about 2008 entirely: I recently spent a full day going over 'Best Books of 2008' lists from major publications and websites (the NY Review of Books, Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, NPR, Amazon, etc) to uncover the Best Asian American Books for 2008 for Hyphen magazine, where I am Books Editor and blogger. 

I discovered that South Asians did quite well, especially when it came to fiction -- where Jhumpa Lahiri reigned supreme with her second short story collection Unaccustomed Earth. In terms of Asian American poetry, I found most of the books I listed from the Kundiman site, though Asian American poets also did well in the American Book Awards. Our own Ravi Shankar was one of the co-editors of a poetry anthology, Language for a New Century, that had a more international focus, but also featured Asian and South Asian American poets. But I did have a hard time finding mention of any South Asian poets on the lists, but maybe it wasn't because of the lack of South Asian poets. 

But what I realized more than anything else, was that POETRY itself was missing from this strange year-end calculation. Sure there were a few (try two) mentions of poetry in the SF Gate's 50 Best Fiction, Poetry Books of 2008, a handful of interesting anthologies in this Guardian story, and here's a random-ish list on the Library Journal site, but I think it is safe to say that poetry published in 2008 safely slipped under the radar of the year-end, gift-guide media frenzy -- as poetry is known to do.  

Is it because of the subjective nature of poetry that makes it hard to review or recommend? Either way, I think it speaks to the way poetry is marginalized in America, or at least seen as un-sellable in a time of year when it's all about the money. But it did inspire me to pay more attention to the way poetry is talked about in the media, for which this blog is a wonderful outlet. 

So, I'll end this post with a little bit of mainstream poet coverage. By this time, I'm sure you've all heard about poet Elizabeth Alexander scoring the biggest poet gig of all time: Barack Obama's Jan. 20th inauguration. Going back to my previous point, this Chicago Tribune article mentions how difficult it is to find Alexander's 2006 Pulitzer Prize finalist collection American Sublime in Chicago bookstores. Either way, it is exciting to see poetry being published in major mainstream American dailies, like the Washington Post, and for indie Graywolf Press to get major attention. 

What poetry books of 2008 do you think were the best? And what were the best poems published by South Asian Americans in 2008? And does it really matter?