Celebrating Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, Graduation Poems, Dear Poet Letters & More

View this email on a browser Forward to a friend May 17, 2016 Celebrating Asian/Pacific Heritage   May marks the start of Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month, a time to celebrate the traditions, cultures, and histories of those of Asian and Pacific heritage in the U.S. Read this selection of poems by contemporary Asian/Pacific American poets.   “Muse” by Meena Alexander “Hymn” by Kazim Ali “How I Got That Name” by Marilyn Chin “The Dream of Shoji” by Kimiko Hahn “Persimmons” by Li-Young Lee “Wrap” by Aimee Nezhukumatathil “from Understory” by Craig Santos Perez “Again, She Tells the First Story” by Barbara Jane Reyes “Kissing in Vietnamese” by Ocean Vuong

Resources for Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month   As part of our celebration of Asian and Pacific Islander heritage this month—and all year round—we’ve curated a selection of poems, audio, videos, essays, books, and more from and about Asian American and Pacific American poets. Find out more by checking out our Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month page. Read "Making the Case for Asian American Poetry" by Timothy Yu. Read "The Totality of Causes," an interview between Li-Young Lee and Tina Chang. Browse poems for Memorial Day. Poems for Graduation   Whether you know a graduate or you yourself are celebrating a commencement, browse our new selection of poems for graduation, from verses on nostalgia to words of guidance on the future, moving forward, and new beginnings. Dear Poet 2016   This National Poetry Month, we invited students in grades 5-12 to write letters in response to poems shared by the award-winning poets on our Board of Chancellors as part of our Dear Poet education project. Read the letters we’ve received from 826 National students, national student poets, and national youth poets laureate, and check back later in May for more featured letters. Parks, Poetry, and Beyond   We’re thrilled to announce that the Academy of American Poets has received a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts to support our programs, including a new project in celebration of the centennial of the National Parks Service, in which we will be commissioning contemporary poets to write poems about national park sites in each state. Poets Forum Joins Dodge Poetry Festival   On October 20-23, for the first time, the Academy of American Poets will join forces with the Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival to present its annual Poets Forum, featuring a reading by the Chancellors of the Academy of American Poets and a series of Chancellor conversations. Find out more about this year's programming. Thanks for being a part of the Academy of American Poets community. To learn about other programs, including National Poetry Month, Poem in Your Pocket Day, the annual Poets Forum, and more, visit Poets.org.   You are receiving this e-mail because you elected to subscribe to our mailing list. If you would like to unsubscribe, please click here.   © Academy of American Poets 75 Maiden Lane, Suite 901, New York, NY 10038

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