At a time when institutional policies have sought to silence, marginalize, deport, or otherwise erase the existences of women of color, our poets have never been less silent. This anthology aims to spotlight the voices of Asian American women and non-binary poets writing through these difficult times. Our contributors range from established poets who are widely published, such as Marilyn Chin, Franny Choi, Victoria Chang, Devi S. Laskar and Bhanu Kapil, to emerging voices such as Paul Tran, Ryka Aoki, Hyejung Kook, and Monica Sok. In They Rise Like A Wave, we've chosen to foster a poetics of breaking boundaries, experimenting with language, and revitalizing a historically narrow and oppressive Western canon. In our selections, we endeavor to show that there is no single style, topic, or theme that defines an Asian American poetics At this time of reckoning and renewal, let us remember that our poetry can be both a reflection of lived experience as well as a call to imagine how to build a better world.
Christine Kitano is the author of the poetry collections Sky Country and Birds of Paradise, and co-author of the oral history collection Who You: The Issei. She is an associate professor at Ithaca College where she teaches courses in poetry and Asian American literature. She also teaches in the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College.
Alycia Pirmohamed is the author of Another Way to Split Water, as well as two chapbooks, Hinge and Faces that Fled the Wind, and the collaborative inter-genre work, Second Memory. She is a teaching associate at the University of Cambridge, where she teaches on the creative writing MSt, and she has held postdoctoral positions with the University of Liverpool and with IASH, University of Edinburgh.
Sandeep Parmar was raised in Southern California and later earned an MA from the University of East Anglia and a PhD from University College London. She is the author of the poetry collections The Marble Orchard (2012) and Eidolon (2017), which won a Ledbury Forte Prize. With James Byrne, she collaborated on the chapbook Myth of the Savage Tribes, Myth of Civilised Nations (2014). Threads, a collaborative pamphlet with Nisha Ramayya and Bhanu Kapil, was published by Clinic in 2018. Parmar's scholarship focuses on British and American Modernism, particularly women's autobiographical writing by lesser-known writers such as Hope Mirrlees, Nancy Cunard, and Mina Loy.
Allison Albino is a Filipina American poet and French teacher who lives and writes in Harlem. Her work has appeared with The Rumpus, The Lantern Review, Pigeon Pages, Poetry Northwest, The Oxford Review of Books, The Alaska Quarterly Review, The Common, and elsewhere. She has received fellowships from The Community of Writers at Squaw Valley, The Fine Arts Work Center and Tin House. Her chapbook, My Mother's Prufrock, was a finalist for YesYes Books' 2019 Vinyl 25 Chapbook Contest. She studied creative writing at Sarah Lawrence College and has an MA in French literature from NYU. She teaches French at an independent school in New York City.
Ryka Aoki is a Japanese American poet, composer, and teacher. She is the author of Seasonal Velocities, He Mele a Hilo (A Hilo Song), Why Dust Shall Never Settle Upon This Soul and The Great Space Adventure. Seasonal Velocities was a finalist for the award for transgender nonfiction in the 25th Lambda Literary Awards in 2013. Why Dust Shall Never Settle Upon This Soul was a finalist for the 28th Lambda Literary Awards. For her work with youth, Ryka was named an Outstanding Volunteer by the LGBT Center's Children, Youth and Family Services. She has an MFA in Creative Writing from Cornell University and is currently a professor of English at Santa Monica College. Her next novel, Light from Uncommon Stars, is forthcoming from Tor Books in Fall 2021.
