The first anthology of its kind, The World I Leave You: Asian American Poets on Faith and Spirit spotlights poets of the Asian diaspora with connections to East, West, South, and Southeast Asia and the Pacific Islands who represent a variety of cultures and religious traditions including Islam, Hinduism, Christianity, Buddhism, and Zoroastrianism. Among the contributors are active religious practitioners, recent converts, agnostics, and those who practice a personal spirituality. This vibrant collection includes many of this generation’s most acclaimed writers and exciting new voices to create a nuanced and dynamic portrait of today’s Asian American poets and their spiritual engagements with issues such as poetry as spiritual witness, locating the divine in the natural world, relationships with cultural history and ancestors, spiritual practice as a form of political resistance, questions of faith and doubt, and prayers and rituals.

Leah Silvieus was born in South Korea and adopted to the U.S. at three months of age. She spent her early childhood and adolescence in small towns in Montana’s Bitterroot Valley and western Colorado. The author of a full-length poetry collection, Arabilis, and two chapbooks, Anemochory and Season of Dares, Silvieus is a recipient of awards from The Academy of American Poets and The Fulbright Program. She serves on Kundiman’s Junior Board and as a mentor on The Brooklyn Poets Bridge.

Lee Herrick is the author of three books of poems, Scar and Flower, Gardening Secrets of the Dead, and This Many Miles from Desire. He served as Fresno Poet Laureate from 2015-2017. Herrick was born in Daejeon, South Korea, adopted at ten months old, and raised in California. He teaches at Fresno City College and in the MFA Program at Sierra Nevada College.