Kenji Liu @ Modern Times Bookstore (again!)

Yes, I’ll be reading at Modern Times Bookstore (SF) again, this time as part of a crew of queer writers and/or writers of color. Come check us out! I’ll have copies of my chapbook on me to sell you, some come say hi.

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Thursday, November 12,
November 12th / 7:00 p.m.

Kimberly DaSilva and guest readers!

Local author Kimberly DaSilva will read from her current manuscript:  The Same Tide For Us Both, a ghost story about a demon, a mother, and the end of the world.

Kimberly’s work has been described as “impressive” by Kirkus and “elegant” by The Advocate.  She has been nominated for a Lambda Literary Award, an American Library Association Stonewall Book Award, as received an ‘also noted’ in Ebony Magazine.

Her guest readers include a myriad of local writers of color and queer writers.  Come hear:

Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore / Claire Light / Natalia Vigil / Jaime Cortez / Carole Simmons / LeConte Dill / Elissa Perry / Kenji Liu / Adam Smyer / Mel Hilario / Mahru Elahi / and Rona Fernandez   all in one place!

Discussion between the audience and the writers will follow the readings.

*This reading is a product of the San Francisco Arts Commission’s Cultural Equity Grant program.

 

Kenji Liu @ Mixtape: 8 Writers on the Songs that Stayed

In addition to debuting new poems this evening, I’ll have copies of my new chapbook from Finishing Line Press on me to sell. Come say hi!

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Taking a cue from Hornby’s writings about music, eight San Francisco Bay Area writers are gathering to read new work inspired by songs and musical artists. The writers will be relating tales of early obsessions with the boy-band New Kids on the Block, examining the particular flavor and psychology of mix-tapes, lending insight to Brian Eno, Quasi, and the Talking Heads, playing “meta-songs,” and exploring the mysterious place where songs that have been forgotten now reside.

Please join us at Oakland Leaf, located in Oakland’s Fruitvale neighborhood, for an evening of writing about song. The writers are:

Sadie Contini
Curt Douglas
Alisa Dodge
Cathlin Goulding
Kenji Liu
G Reyes
Ava Tong
Vickie Vértiz

7:00pm-9:00pm
1434 34th Ave. @ International Blvd.
Oakland, CA

See http://www.echoesmagazine.org/mix_tape_home for more information about the location, writers, and writings.

 

Kenji’s Poetry Chapbook Release and Reading – Nov 5

I’m excited to announce that singer/songwriter extraordinaire Alice Tong will be joining us! Bios below. See you there, and please spread the word.

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You Left Without Your Shoes

Poetry Chapbook Release and Reading with Kenji Liu

and special guests:

Aimee Suzara

Alice Tong

Vickie Vértiz

Copies of the chapbook will be available for purchase and signing.
Come celebrate!!!

Modern Times Bookstore
888 Valencia St, SF
FREE
7 pm

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In this debut Kenji Liu explores the interweavings of migration, love, memory and mourning in an autobiography of poems spanning four years. Beginning with the untimely death of his mother, this collection contemplates the difficult task of transforming one’s relationship with the dead and the renewal of life that can accompany it.

Praise for You Left Without Your Shoes:

“From the shreds of grief and displacement, Kenji Liu has woven whole cloth. These are exquisite poems, sculpted and flowing, the lines meant to be caressed by the reader’s eyes, the words read aloud for the ears. You don’t have to try to remember this poet’s name – Kenji Liu will, without a doubt, in time establish himself as one of our
major American poets.”
- Patricia Y. Ikeda, featured in the award-winning documentary film, Between the Lines: Asian American Women’s Poetry

“Beautiful seems too cliche a word for these poems that are original and effused with love, and memory and loss and ties that link one generation to the next regardless of time and circumstance. Kenji Liu artfully opens up your heart with these lucid poems.”
- Opal Palmer Adisa, latest collection, I Name Me Name

“In You Left Without Your Shoes, Kenji Liu engages and entangles his reader in a conversation, a testament, an ocean, a desert of memory, a flight, a witness towards the survival of loss and what lies beyond. These multi-layered poems, tender and resilient, fly towards the possible.”
- Ching-In Chen, author of The Heart’s Traffic

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About the artists:

Kenji Liu is a 1.5 generation Japanese-born Taiwanese American expatriate of New Jersey suburbia. Arising from his work as an activist, educator and cultural worker, his writing explores the politics of identity, migration, race, gender, memory, history, mourning, joy and everyday small occurrences. Kenji’s poetry chapbook, You Left Without Your Shoes, was published by Finishing Line Press (2009). His writing has also appeared in Tea Party Magazine, Kartika
Review, and the 2009 Intergenerational Writer’s Workshop online anthology called Flick of My Tongue. He is currently working on a multi-genre full-length collection of poetry, prose and visual art.

Based in Oakland, Aimee Suzara is a Filipino-American writer/performer, cultural worker and educator who has been writing and performing spoken word, poetry, and theatre incorporating movement since 1999. Her play, Pagbabalik (“Return”), was awarded the Zellerbach Community Arts Grant in 2006 and 2007, and she has been
published in the NAACP-nominated Check the Rhyme: An Anthology of Female Poets and Emcees (Lit Noire, 2007). Her poetry chapbook, the space between, was published by Finishing Line Press in 2008. Suzara has shared her passion for the intersection of arts, literacy and education by teaching at Las Positas, Laney College, City College San
Francisco, and Kearny Street Workshop.

Alice Tong is a singer, songwriter, artist, activist, social worker, 2nd generation Chinese-Taiwanese-American. Alice has a BA in Ethnomusicology and a Masters in Social Work. Her musical style ranges from such categories as folk rock, indie rock, soul, and jazz. Her music has been in independent films, including “American Fusion” which won the Audience Award at the Hawaii International Film Festival. Alice’s album “Small” can be bought on iTunes, Amazon, or www.blacklava.net. She now lives in San Francisco where she gets obsessed with her dogs and makes and performs more music. For more about Alice, check out www.myspace.com/alicetongmusic

Vickie Vértiz is a writer from Los Angeles with roots in poetry, working in fiction and playwrighting. Vickie’s work can be found in Mujeres de Maiz Zine and in I Saw My Ex at a Party: Traversing the Literary Unexpected (Kearny Street Press), the 2008 Intergenerational Writers’ Workshop Anthology. She lives in San Francisco.

 

Interview on Hyphen Magazine blog!

I was interviewed by poeta Barbara Jane Reyes about my new chapbook and my experiences with VONA workshops for writers of color. Check it out:

http://www.hyphenmagazine.com/blog/2009/09/small-press-kenji-liu-you-left.html

 

Aug 20: Asian Pacific American & Latin@ Poetry Night

Illustration and design by Kenji Liu

Aug 20, 2009
Asian Pacific American & Latin@ Poetry Night

8-10 pm
The Nest
200 2nd St
Oakland, CA

FREE

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Mochi cuernos? Horchata boba? Soy chicken adobo? Tapatio maguro sushi?

What happens when we bring together 5 great Asian Pacific American and Latina/o poets in one room?

Find out as we enter the linguistic worlds of:

OSCAR BERMEO
MAI DOAN
KENJI C. LIU
BARBARA JANE REYES
VICKIE VÉRTIZ

Join us in The Nest with resident artist ADIA MILLETT, whose latest brilliant installation will be our environment.

*** Bring a cushion to sit on!

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BIOS

OSCAR BERMEO is the author of the poetry chapbooks Anywhere Avenue, Palimpsest and Heaven Below. Recent poems appear in BorderSenses, In the Grove and Spindle, among others. Oscar is a BRIO (Bronx Recognizes Its Own), IWL (Intergenerational Writers Lab) and VONA (Voices of Our Nations Arts Foundation) poetry fellow. He lives in Oakland with his wife, poeta Barbara Jane Reyes.

MAI DOAN likes mangoes and sticky things wrapped in banana leaves. Her experiences growing up Vietnamese/Mexican in and out of a Californian suburb known for its white supremacy has deeply influence the intent and content of her writing. She finds voice through her poetry and with it, seeks to break down borders and recreate connection, within and outside of herself. Her work can be found in the Spring 2009 Cipactli: La Raza Arts and Literature Journal as well as the 2009 Intergenerational Writers Workshop online anthology Flick of My Tongue.

KENJI LIU is a 1.5 generation Japanese-born Taiwanese American expatriate of New Jersey suburbia. He holds an MA in Cultural Anthropology and Social Transformation from the California Institute of Integral Studies. Arising from his work as an activist, educator and cultural worker, his writing explores the politics of identity, migration, race, gender, memory, history, mourning, joy and everyday small occurrences. Kenji’s poetry chapbook You Left Without Your Shoes is forthcoming from Finishing Line Press. His writing has also appeared in Tea Party Magazine, Kartika Review, and the 2009 Intergenerational Writer’s Workshop Anthology called Flick of My Tongue.

ADIA MILLET: Deeply embedded in a series of metaphors and dark visual poetry, Adia Millett’ s changing installations suggest a story of a delicate transition from loss to potential love. Her works examine the beauty of impermanence, the power of the unknown, and the inevitable illusion of innocence. In the artist’s studio, symbolic gestures, objects and sounds convey an abstracted reality where the viewer is asked to fill in the blanks. Millett will be working on a short film project and a series of installations over the course of her two-month residency.

Adia Millett has been included in numerous national and international exhibitions at venues. She earned an MFA from California Institute of the Arts, Valencia, CA, 2000; and a BFA from the University of California, Berkeley, 1997.

BARBARA JANE REYES was born in Manila, Philippines and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area. She received her undergraduate education at UC Berkeley, and her MFA at San Francisco State University. She is the author of Gravities of Center (Arkipelago, 2003) and Poeta en San Francisco (Tinfish, 2005), for which she received the James Laughlin Award of the Academy of American Poets. Reyes is a recent Pushcart Prize nominee, and her work has appeared or is forthcoming in numerous publications. She is a Visiting Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at Mills College, and she lives with her husband, the poet Oscar Bermeo, in Oakland, CA.

VICKIE VÉRTIZ is a writer, born and raised in Los Angeles, whose work is largely informed by the urban magical. Vickie’s poems can be found in Mujeres de Maiz and in the 2008 Intergenerational Writer’s Workshop Anthology called, “I Saw My Ex at a Party.” She lives in San Francisco.