March 1 Deadline: Kundiman Asian American Poets’ Retreat
 

Kundiman Asian American Poets’ Retreat
July 13 – 17, 2005
University of Virginia, Charlottesville

Deadline for Application: Postmark March 1, 2005
For more information on Kundiman, see http://www.kundiman.org

Introduction
In order to help mentor the next generation of Asian-American poets,
Kundiman is sponsoring an annual Poetry Retreat at The University of
Virginia. During the Retreat, nationally renowned Asian American poets
will conduct workshops and provide one-on-one mentorship sessions with
participants. Readings and informal social gatherings will also be
scheduled. Through this Retreat, Kundiman hopes to provide a safe and
instructive environment that identifies and addresses the unique
challenges faced by emerging Asian American poets. This 5-day Retreat will
take place from Wednesday to Sunday. Workshops will be conducted from
Thursday to Saturday. Workshops will not exceed six students.

Writing Workshop
A nationally renowned Asian American poet will facilitate each writing
workshop. Workshops will consist of writing exercises and group
discussions on participant poems. At each workshop, participants will be
expected to write and workshop new poems. Participants will have the
opportunity to take a workshop with every Faculty member. In order to help
foster relationships between participants themselves, each participant
will be assigned a home group, and will remain in that home group for the
duration of the retreat. The Faculty will rotate in the work-shopping of
each home group.

Mentoring: Conferring and Connections
Faculty members will schedule one-on-one conferences with participants.
Prior to arriving, participants will submit a request indicating their
order of preference as to which poet they would like to meet
one-on-one. Administrators will try to accommodate each applicant’s request.

Faculty
Lawson Inada is third-generation Japanese American, born and raised in
Fresno, California. He has taught at Southern Oregon State College since
1966. For both historical and aesthetic reasons, Lawson Inada is a
significant figure in Asian American poetry and literature. He was one of
the co-editors of the landmark anthology, Aiiieeeee! An Anthology of
Asian-American Writers, and has participated in efforts to recover writing
by earlier Japanese American authors such as Toshio Mori and John Okada.
Inada’s collection Before the War: Poems as They Happened (1971) was one
of the first Asian American single-author volumes of poetry from a major
New York publishing house. Inada won the American Book Award in 1994 for
Legends from Camp and was named Oregon State Poet of the Year in 1991. He
has received a number of poetry fellowships from the National Endowment
for the Arts.

Aimee Nezhukumatathil is the author of "Miracle Fruit" (Tupelo Press),
winner of ForeWord Magazine's Poetry Book of the Year Award, the Global
Filipino Literary Award, and finalist for the Asian American Literary
Award and the Glasgow Prize. She received her MFA at Ohio State University
and was the Middlebrook Poetry Fellow at the Wisconsin Institute for
Creative Writing at UW-Madison. Other awards for her writing include the
Boatwright Prize from Shenandoah, The Richard Hugo Prize from Poetry
Northwest, an Associated Writing Programs Intro Award in creative
non-fiction and several nominations for the Pushcart Prize. She is
Assistant Professor of English at State University of New
York-Fredonia--right in the heart of cherry and berry country--where she
lives with her mini-dachshund, Villanelle.

Patrick Rosal is the author of Uprock Headspin Scramble And Dive (Persea
Books). His work has been published in many journals and anthologies
including North American Review, Columbia, The Literary Review, and The
Beacon Best 2001. He has been a featured reader at many
venues in and out of NYC, from Boston to Daytona Beach, as well as in
London and on the BBC radio’s “World Today.” He is currently Assistant
Professor of
English at Bloomfield College.

Fees & Financial Aid
There is a scholarship fund for those who need assistance. Requests for
financial aid should be made after acceptance to the retreat. To keep the
cost of the retreat low, participants are not charged fees for
workshops. Room and Board for the retreat is $300.

Application Process
Send three (3) copies of five to seven (5-7) paginated, stapled pages of
poetry, with your name included on each page. Include a cover letter with
your name, address, phone number, e-mail address and a brief paragraph
describing what you would like to accomplish at the Kundiman Asian
American Poets’ Retreat. Include a SAS postcard if you want an application
receipt. Manuscripts will not be returned. No electronic
submissions, please.

Mail application to:

Kundiman
245 Eighth Avenue #151
New York, NY 10011
Submissions must be postmarked by March 1, 2005