Chen Chen & Craig Perez Talk Around the Realm of APA Poetries

Literary Hub has poets Chen Chen and Craig Perez in conversation this week, helpfully guiding us to what's most exciting in and around contemporary Asian/Pacific/American (APA) poetries. An excerpt from their interview:

[Craig Perez:] ...What do you find most exciting in the poetry world? And, with the publication of your new book, how do you see yourself and poetry contributing to, engaging with, or diverging from contemporary APA poetries?

CC: Right now, I’m obsessed with poetry podcasts. The Poetry Pharmacy, Commonplace Podcast, The Poetry Gods, Interesting People Reading Poetry—these are the podcasts I’ve been exploring lately. I’m sure there are more I need to check out. I realized over the summer that I was feeling distant from poetry because my experience of it was limited to pages and screens—a lot of reading in my head, in my own mental voice, I guess. I needed to get out of my head and hear other people reading and talking about poems again. I’ve been isolated in Lubbock, Texas, so podcasts are a lovely way—in between opportunities to travel and meet more writers in person—of getting back into the poetry conversation as it’s unfolding across the country and internationally, as well.

As for how I see myself in the realm of contemporary APA poetries, I feel very much a student, still—though I do teach APA poets in my classes and workshops. I mean ‘student’ in the sense that I want to keep in mind how much more I still need to read and learn from. I hope my book contributes to the growing conversation around how race, gender, and sexuality intersect for APA communities. I feel very lucky to be writing in a time when more and more queer APA folks are doing such groundbreaking work—Kazumi Chin, Franny Choi, Muriel Leung, Rajiv Mohabir, Hieu Minh Nguyen, Margaret Rhee, Ocean Vuong, Shelley Wong, and other rock stars.

When you’re feeling stuck or stalled as a writer, how do you get unstuck, moving again?

CP: That is a wonderful list of poet-stars indeed—what an exciting time to be an APA writer! And thanks for the podcasts. I can relate to the feeling of distance. Hawaiʻi has a vibrant literary scene, but it is difficult and expensive for me to travel to the continental United States to attend conferences, festivals, readings, etc., which I basically just don’t do anymore since moving here in 2010. Sadly, I was not able to tour for my 2014 book, nor will I be able to tour for my book coming out this year. Social media is really the only way I engage with the larger literary scene.

The main thing that stalls me as a writer is a lack of time...

We hear that. More at Literary Hub.