Name: We The Gathered Heat: A Reading of Asian American & Pacific Islander Poetry
Start: 2025-05-31T14:00:00-0400
End: 2025-05-31T15:00:00-0400

Saturday May 31, 2025 2:00pm - 3:00pm EDT

PEM - Morse Auditorium

To celebrate the recent release of the newest anthology, “We The Gathered Heat: Asian American and Pacific Islander Poetry, Performance, and Spoken Word (Haymarket Books, 2024),” this reading will highlight 7 contributors from the anthology who all have New England ties. This anthology, and this reading, will feature some of the brightest voices in contemporary American poetry who challenge, expand, and illuminate the meaning of the label “Asian American and Pacific Islander” in today’s world.

Too often, Pacific Islanders and Asian Americans are squeezed into the same story. The poets gathered in this anthology, and the lineages they represent, exceed this sameness. May this anthology, and reading, uplift complexities and incite transformation and joy.

Speakers

Franny Choi

Their books include: The World Keeps Ending, and the World Goes On (Ecco, 2022), a finalist for the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award; Soft Science (Alice James Books, 2019); and Floating, Brilliant, Gone (Write Bloody Publishing, 2014). Franny’s writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Paris Review, and elsewhere. Franny is the current Poet Laureate of Northampton, MA, and the founder of Brew & Forge. She has two books forthcoming: a collection of essays about... Read More →

Usman Hameedi

Usman Hameedi is a Pakistani-American scientist, poet, and educator. He also serves on Mass Poetry’s Board of Directors. Since 2008, he has competed in and coached for collegiate, national, and international-level poetry slams. Usman has been featured in The Huffington Post, Intima... Read More →

Joshua Nguyen

Joshua Nguyen is the author of Come Clean (University of Wisconsin Press) and the author of the chapbooks, American Lục Bát for My Mother (Bull City Press) and Hidden Labor & The Naked Body (Sundress Publications). He is a Vietnamese American writer, a collegiate national poetry slam champion (CUPSI), and a native Houstonian. He is a humor editor for The Offing Mag and is a professional dish-dryer. He received his MFA/PhD from the University of Mississippi and currently teaches at Tufts University... Read More →

Chrysanthemum

Chrysanthemum is a poet and performance artist in Rhode Island, where she serves as co-director of the Providence Poetry Slam. She is currently Writer-in-Residence for the Providence Commemoration Lab. She has received fellowships from Poetry Foundation, Kundiman, Rhode Island Foundation... Read More →

Giles Li

Giles Li has had a career in the nonprofit and philanthropic sectors for more than 25 years. He also has been a poet, performer, and cultural organizer.

Juliana Chang

Juliana Chang is a Taiwanese American poet. Her work appears or is forthcoming in The American Poetry Review, The Chestnut Review, diode poetry journal, Best New Poets 2023, and other publications. Juliana's first full-length collection, So Long This Wound Stayed Open, was published with ELJ Editions in 2024... Read More →

Matthew Olzmann

Matthew Olzmann is the author of Constellation Route, as well as two previous collections of poetry: Mezzanines and Contradictions in the Design. A recipient of fellowships from Kundiman, MacDowell, and the National Endowment for the Arts, Olzmann’s poems have appeared in The New York Times, Best American Poetry, The Pushcart Prizes, The Kenyon Review, and elsewhere. He is an assistant professor at Dartmouth College and als... Read More →

Saturday May 31, 2025 2:00pm - 3:00pm EDT
PEM - Morse Auditorium 161 Essex St Salem, MA 01970 USA

Reading

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The 2025 Massachusetts Poetry Festival