Join me online at the International Women's Writing Guild for a two-hour workshop at 12:00 EST / 18:00 CET where we'll wander and revel in poetry! Let's create some lustful metaphors, and use distance to create surprising emotional landscapes. We'll explore Lyn Hejinia's poetic theories, pieces from some of my favorite poets and dive into writing exercises. Hope to see you there! Register at: https://iwwg.org/event-5603029
Ever since I first picked up a copy of the Brooklyn Rail at McNally Jackson years ago, I wanted to be a part of it. Now thanks to Dr. Michelle Yee, this poem written in dialogue to her brilliant work on contemporary Asian-American Art is now out in Brooklyn Rail! I loved writing from Michelle's ideas of "in-betweenness," how to create and break boundaries within the "master's language," and how to celebrate the joys of being an Asian-American woman.
Read the poem collaboration here.Read at: shenandoahliterary.org/thepeak/a-correspondence-yun-wei-leigh-ann-beavers
In the first week of the pandemic, when we didn't know this would last for more than a year, when we created a bunker life in a one-bedroom apartment, these two poems poured out of me. In "It Was Our First Great Sorrow," I imagined what hell would be like if it were made of flowers, when something beautiful turns into the tragic. Then in a burst of uncharacteristic positivity, I thought about how phrases like "the best things in life" are so familiar yet unknown and undefinable. Those moments that make you feel on a visceral level that life is precious are the ones that surprise, the ones that defy rational explanations. Now, more than a year after that bunker life, Shenandoah Journal has put these poems out in the world, and the world has changed so much, yet in some ways, not at all.
Read the rest of "It Was Our First Great Sorrow" and "The Best Things in Life."
And check out the full issue of writers I'm lucky to be sharing space with, including Anna Maria Hong and a new translation of Adonis!
Many thanks to Hannah Webster and all of the Michigan Quarterly Review editors for including it in their latest print issue, as well as Khaled Mattawa for the deeply inspiring foreword. Order your copy here.
The shooting of eight people, including six Asian women, in Atlanta felt like an extension of the racist sexual harassment that I and so many Asian women are all too familiar with. Because the stereotypes of the model minority and the objectification of Asian women are considered "positive" narratives, we're told to take it as a compliment, when really, desire doesn't keep you safe, it puts you in harm's way.
The disease of these dehumanizing narratives is highly infectious and persistent. It was in Paris I was told I was too pretty for a Chinese, in Geneva where I've been followed home at night, in New York where I was groped on the subway. It doesn't matter if it was last week, years ago, or back to the 1875 Page Act, every one of those dehumanizing attacks stay with me. Forgetting makes it easier to live through, but I don't want to forget. It shouldn't take a mass murder for us to say it's wrong, it's all wrong. Now is the time for rage.
Thank you J Spagnolo and Sophia Marina for making my poem news. Read here.
Here are just a few of the brave, brilliant women who inspired me:
Starting the year off right thanks to Roanoke Review who just featured my poem “Second Child” about China’s change from one-child to two-child policy. Check out the journal - they regularly feature stunning work (including new poems by Pulitzer-prize winning and founder Henry Taylor) plus they treat their writers with lots of kindness and support.
