The 2019 Asian American Literature Festival

This summer, Poetry magazine is thrilled to partner with the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center (APAC) and the Library of Congress Poetry and Literature Center on the 2019 Asian American Literature Festival happening this August 2–4 in Washington, DC.

In 2017, we partnered with APAC on programming for the inaugural Asian Ameirican Literary Festival as well as a special “Asian American Poets” issue edited by Lawrence-Minh Búi Davis, Tarfia Faizullah, and Timothy Yu. The double issue featured poems by a wide array of contributors as well as APAC’s “Culture Lab Manifesto,” which we used to build this year’s collaboration, the Poets’ Peace Breakfast: Invocations. Together we gathered poem invocations for peace and published them in two parts, one in print and the second online, selections of which will be read at the opening breakfast ceremony. We will also revisit Khaty Xiong’s 2018 exhibition at Poetry Foundation,  “On Visiting the Franklin Garden Conservatory & Botanical Gardens,” which is being reinstalled at the festival as a “Grief Garden.” And in honor of the festival, we’ve made the entire July/August issue free to read in the Poetry magazine app! You can download our app through Google Play or the Apple App Store.

What follows is a preview of the forthcoming festival in “8 Snapshots” provided by the organizers. If you are in the DC area, please come through to and say hey!

Poets' Peace Breakfast
Franklin Square Park, August 2, 9:00–10:30 AM
A welcome peace breakfast hosted by the Poetry Foundation and the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center, featuring invocation poems published as part of the July/August 2019 issue of Poetry magazine, featuring work by Mai Der Vang, Hari Alluri, Carolina Ebeid, and Ching-In Chen.

Queer Literaoke
Eaton DC, Beverly Snow Ballroom, August 3, 9:00–11:00 PM
A mashup of literary reading and karaoke, co-curated by Kaya Press, Kundiman, OutWrite, and AALR, featuring Wo Chan, Yanyi, Jericho Brown, and Mimi Khúc.

Intimate Lectures
Library of Congress, August 3, 10:00 AM–4:45 PM
Poet Arthur Sze and novelist Monique Truong give inside, loving tours of Asian American literature, a mix of social/intellectual history, anecdotes, connections, and short readings of excerpts of literary works by writers both celebrated and overlooked.

Literary Lounge
Eaton DC, Salon Room, August 2 and 4, 10:00 AM–5:00 PM
A hybrid bookfair and immersive installation space for staging new kinds of encounters with Asian American literature, including a skill-sharing takeover, where poets and writers offer tutorials on everything from poetic forms to self-care, writing practices to making a good cup of coffee.

Asian American Literature Donation Project
A project running throughout the Festival to flow Asian American literature into new spaces in the DC/MD/VA area, with a focus on youth groups, community centers, and small libraries without acquisition budgets.

Fun English Class
Eaton DC, Beverly Snow Ballroom, August 4, 6:00–8:00 PM
Like English class, but fun! Read Ocean Vuong’s debut novel On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, then come to “class” discussions of the novel led by poet Sally Wen Mao, poet Rajiv Mohabir, and scholars from the Circle for Asian American Literary Studies; top it off with a live reading by and convo with Ocean himself.

Grief Garden
Eaton DC, Salon Room, August 2 and 4, 10:00AM–5:00PM
An immersive poetry installation based on the Khaty Xiong poem “On Visiting the Franklin Garden Conservatory & Botanical Gardens” from the July/August 2019 issue about visiting a garden to find the ghost of the poet’s recently deceased mother. Created as a collaboration between APAC + the Poetry Foundation, first staged in the Poetry Foundation gallery in 2018.

VS Podcast
Eaton DC, Wild Days Rooftop Bar, August 2, 2:00–3:30 PM
Franny Choi and Danez Smith host a live session of their award-winning podcast VS, with Kundiman guests Sarah Gambito, Joseph Legaspi, and Cathy Linh Che.