We’ve been looking forward to sharing our youth folio issue with you all year, and this morning, we’re thrilled to finally announce its release. The second installment in our 2021 season celebrating “Asian American Futures,” Issue 9.2 (titled “Arrivals”), features work by fourteen young poets and visual artists, all of whom were between the ages of fourteen and twenty-four at the time of submission.
We hope you’ll enjoy making your way through this powerful issue—and that you’ll help us celebrate by passing on the word! Leave us a comment below to tell us what you think, or find us on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram (@LanternReview).
Please consider supporting a small press or independent bookstore with your purchase.
As an Asian American–focused publication, Lantern Review stands for diversity within the literary world. In solidarity with other communities of color and in an effort to connect our readers with a wider range of voices, we recommend a different collection by a non-Asian-American-identified BIPOC poet in each blog post.
New and Notable Asian American Poetry Books for Early Fall 2021
Even we find ourselves at the close of another challenging summer, Asian American voices continue to shine in print. Earlier this year, we celebrated the proliferation of spring Asian American poetry releases. Today, we’re excited to highlight just a small portion of the new and forthcoming works coming out of the AsAm poetry community this fall.
Gary Jackson’s second collection delves deep into family history, hopping back and forth across time and geography to tell the stories of Jackson’s Korean maternal grandmother, Dukie, and his mother, Kimberly. Sprinkling personal vignettes with missives in Dukie’s voice and erasures created from interviews with Kimberly, Jackson meditates on what it means to navigate among identities—Blackness and Asianness, Americanness and Koreanness—across continents, and through intersecting diasporas in search of belonging. We thoroughly enjoyed this powerful new collection and hope you’ll check it out as well.
Contributor (and past staff writer) Monica Mody’s newest chapbook, written over the course of the last year, reflects on the tumultuous events of 2020 and 2021 as the poet herself contended with the US’s notoriously thorny visa system. In her signature resonant and deeply grounded poetic style, Mody examines the limits of the body in all its many senses—as creative work, as organism, as site of protest, as political subject, as resident (of community, of nation, of habitat, of ecosystem, of Earth)—resulting in a prescient work that, in the poet’s own words, “falter(s) towards a ripple, a ground of healing.” A beautiful artifact of these difficult times, this lovely little handmade chap is not one to miss.
It’s no secret that we’re big fans of Rajiv Mohabir’s lush, melodic poetry. (We’ve published himthreetimes, after all!) Cutlish is his third full-length collection, out this month from Four Way Books. Built around a semi-invented, musically inspired form that Mohabir calls a “chutney poem” after the work of Sundar Popo (considered the father of Caribbean Chutney music), Cutlish sets out to investigate the interstices of language and diaspora, postcolonial and queer identities. Patrick Rosal writes that, in its pages, “Mohabir leads us enthusiastically to the edges of language—torn, improvised, as well as deftly carved—where music and meaning are visually and sonically sumptuous.” If you’ve enjoyed the pieces of Mohabir’s that we’ve published in the past, you’ll definitely want to pick up a copy of this book.
We were lucky enough to publish Mai Der Vang’s work back in Issue 3, and we were incredibly excited to hear about her second book’s entry into the world this fall. Vang’s first collection, Afterland, won the Walt Whitman Award, and she’s now followed it up with Yellow Rain, which bears witness to the harm inflicted upon the Hmong people in Laos in the 70s and 80s by the chemical known as “yellow rain.” Using collaged language drawn from historical documents, Vang’s newest book promises to be just as searingly powerful as her first. Booklist has awarded it a starred review, and Kao Kalia Yang describes it as a “an indictment of the highest and most poetic order.” We can’t wait to dig into this one when it’s released later this month!
What new Asian American poetry titles are on your radar this season? We’d love to hear from you! Share your recommendations with us in the comments or on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram (@LanternReview).
Please consider supporting a small press or independent bookstore with your purchase.
As an Asian American–focused publication, Lantern Review stands for diversity within the literary world. In solidarity with other communities of color and in an effort to connect our readers with a wider range of voices, we recommend a different collection by a non-Asian-American-identified BIPOC poet in each blog post.
This week on the blog, it’s our privilege to feature the work of writer, book artist, and designer Thad Higa. For the past few months, Higa has been working on a visual poem with our 2021 theme of “Asian American Futures” in mind. Inspired by Kenji C. Liu’s frankenpo form, his immersive piece probes the age-old microaggressive question “Where are you from?” and investigates issues of language and belonging by merging wordplay with typography and digital collage.
Below, we’ve asked Higa to introduce his project and the concept behind it. When you’re ready to explore the poem itself in full, head on after the jump.
Artist’s Statement
The aesthetic was founded on frankenpo, a verb defined by poet Kenji C. Liu in his book Monsters I Have Been as: “to create a new poetic text by collecting, disaggregating, randomizing, rearranging, recombining, erasing, and reanimating one or more chosen bodies of text, for the purpose of divining or revealing new meaning often at odds with the original text.”
This is a digital broadside on identity ideation. It attempts to see words and concepts as identity-building materials that prop up binary, compartmentalized thinking. All variations of bodies and ways of being outside of this black/white vocabular are alien, invalid, dehumanized. “From the Mountain” wants to crack open English language and unveil the act of reading and judgement-making, to get at the root of seeing and knowing others and ourselves.
At long last, Issue 9.1, the first in our 2021 season, is here! We’ve been talking about our theme, “Asian American Futures,” for months now, but when we finally sat down to work on this first issue, we were amazed at how naturally the pieces in it seemed to come together. From Tanzila “Taz” Ahmed’s colorful, witty cover art featuring a gathering of laser-eyed aunties to Joan Kwon Glass’s poem about her daughter’s love for Iron Man,Issue 9.1 is populated by superheroes, ghosts, space explorers, and other shared motifs that converge and riff off one another to carve out their own, sweeping futuristic visions.
In addition to Ahmed’s and Glass’s work, the issue also features poems from Cathy Linh Che, Chen Chen, Kirsten Shu-ying Chen, Geramee Hensley, Eddie Kim, and Bethany Swann. We’re in love with the courage, the hope, the fierce tenderness, and the wisdom to be found in these pieces, and we can’t wait to share them with you today.
We hope you’ll enjoy the issue, and as always, we’d love to hear your impressions! Leave us a comment below or let us know what you think on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram (@LanternReview).
Please consider supporting a small press or independent bookstore with your purchase.
As an Asian American–focused publication, Lantern Review stands for diversity within the literary world. In solidarity with other communities of color and in an effort to connect our readers with a wider range of voices, we recommend a different collection by a non-Asian-American-identified BIPOC poet in each blog post.
New and Notable Asian American Poetry Books for Early Summer 2021
Yet another Asian Pacific American Heritage Month is drawing to a close, but even in the face of the hatred that our Asian American community has faced this year, there is still so much to celebrate. This month’s Asian American poetry companion is jam-packed with recent releases to savor. We hope you’ll consider picking up a few (or all) of them to carry with you into the summer and beyond. After all, as we often remark, Asian American literary excellence doesn’t end with May!
If you enjoyed MICHAEL CHANG’s lusciously textured epistolary poem in Issue 8.2, you’ll want to get your hands on a copy of Drakkar Noir, their prizewinning debut chapbook, out from Bateau this spring. Dorothy Chan writes, in praise of the book, that “CHANG gives us romp and runway fused with popular culture that leads into allegories of what it’s like to be queer and Asian American in America—in the world today—around people who want to slow you down. Drakkar Noir is a love letter to all queer Asian Americans that calls out performative allyship.” If you’re looking for an intimate read that speaks presciently to the present moment, you won’t want to miss this one!
Though Appropriate has been out since February, we wanted to save it for our May roundup because it seemed fitting to it feature during APA Heritage Month. In this thoughtful craft book, framed as a series of letters to a student, Rekdal tackles the thorny subject of appropriation with delicacy, investigating difficult questions of power and authenticity that come into play when writing about the experiences of others—and probing, ultimately, the limits of empathy. Rekdal writes with care and pragmatism; her nuanced approach to this tricky topic makes this, in our opinion, an essential read—not just for students and teachers but for anyone who writes.
Muriel Leung’s second collection, which won the Nightboat Books Poetry Prize, is hot off the presses this month. A collection of essays in verse, Imagine Us, the Swarm considers the loss of the poet’s father. In so doing, Monica Youn writes, it “renders visible the liminal space of the Asian American, an occupied territory in which every silence, every potentiality, hums with the white noise of other people’s imaginings.” Given the context of our community’s continued struggle for justice, and in light of our theme this season (Asian American futures), this collection is one we can’t wait to read.
What titles by Asian American poets are on your reading list this summer? We’d love to hear from you! Share your recommendations with us in the comments or on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram (@LanternReview).
ALSO RECOMMENDED:
Migratory Sound by Sara Lupita Olivares (U of Arizona Press, 2020)
Please consider supporting a small press or independent bookstore with your purchase.
As an Asian American–focused publication, Lantern Review stands for diversity within the literary world. In solidarity with other communities of color and in an effort to connect our readers with a wider range of voices, we recommend a different collection by a non-Asian-American-identified BIPOC poet in each blog post.
New and Notable Asian American Poetry Books for April 2021
It’s a heavy time to be celebrating National Poetry Month. In the face of continued violence, our Asian American community aches. And yet, as our guest editor this season, Eugenia Leigh, shared on Twitter with regard to our theme for the season, “The racist hate crimes against Asian Americans don’t get to silence us. We get to define what #AsianAmericanFutures looks like.” If the wealth of new poetry titles by Asian American writers hitting the shelves this year is any indication, then the future of Asian America looks bright. Poetry as resistance, as resilience, as vision, as voice, as witness, as document, as radical care, as light—that alone is something to celebrate.
Cynthia Arrieu-King has not one, but two new books out this spring. In addition to her lyric essay, The Betweens(Noemi, March 2021), her latest collection, Continuity, hits shelves this month. Arrieu-King has observed that she envisions Continuity as the second half of a “double album.” While her previous collection, Futureless Languages, looks ahead, Continuity dips into the past, excavating histories of war and inherited trauma. Laura Jaramillo describes the poems in the collection as “sonically soft and visually holographic, sensorially pleasurable and richly melancholy.” If you’ve enjoyed Arrieu-King’s previous books as much as I have, then Continuity is sure to be a title you won’t want to miss.
Our theme for the season is “Asian American Futures,” a notion that issue 1 contributor Tamiko Beyer’s newest collection, Last Days, embodies wonderfully. Featuring a group of charismatic young revolutionaries and their struggle to navigate a post-apocalyptic world, Last Days celebrates hope, resilient joy, and the beauty of human interconnectedness. Beyer writes with the deep tenderness, empathy, and breathtaking lyric clarity that is a hallmark of her work. I had the chance to preview the collection earlier this year, and it’s been one of my favorite reads of 2021 so far.
The title of Tiana Nobile’s first collection, Cleave, is a contranym—a choice that, per the Southern Review of Books’s interview with the author, nods to the complexity of her experience as a transnational adoptee. Accordingly, Cleave mixes research with personal history to interrogate the legacy of transnational adoption. The result, writes Cathy Park Hong, is a “mythic origin story that is beautiful, melancholic and powerful.” I’ve enjoyed reading individual pieces from Nobile’s project in the past and admire the way she’s combined meticulous craft with an unflinching sense of vision. Now that Cleave is finally out in the world, I can’t wait to dig into the collection in its entirety!
We hope you’ll consider giving one of these books a read this month. As always, if you are able, we encourage you to support small presses and local independent bookstores (especially BIPOC-owned bookstores) with your purchases. And we’d love to hear from you! What Asian American poetry books are on your radar this April?Share your recommendations with us in the comments or on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram (@LanternReview).
Please consider supporting an independent bookstore with your purchase.
As an Asian American–focused publication, Lantern Review stands for diversity within the literary world. In solidarity with other communities of color and in an effort to connect our readers with a wider range of voices, we recommend a different collection by a non-Asian-American-identified BIPOC poet in each blog post.
It’s the last week of our 2021 youth folio reading period! Earlier this year, we introduced our 2021 guest editor, Eugenia, and in late 2020, we helped you get to know Karen, our fall intern (and current staff reader). Today, while you’re preparing those last-minute submissions, we thought we’d take the time to highlight another member of our editorial team: our senior staff reader, Indrani Sengupta. Indrani is a Pushcart Prize–nominated poet from Kolkata, India, who is, in her words, “currently braving Illinois weather.” She received her MFA in poetry from Boise State University, and her work has appeared or is forthcoming in journals such as Quarterly West, American Poetry Review, Colorado Review, Indiana Review, Copper Nickel, Black Warrior Review, Southeast Review, and Grimoire. As a key member of the LR editorial team for the past two years, Indrani brings a keen eye for craft and an empathetic approach to our submissions process, evaluating each poem she reads with fairness and care. If a manuscript crosses Indrani’s desk, rest assured that it’s in good hands! Read on to learn more about Indrani’s obsession with writing the body through fairy tales, garden spaces, and more in her own poetry; her thoughts on the importance of having the courage to play with abandon in one’s work; and her radical, canon-exploding dreams for the future of Asian American poetry. We know you’ll love her as much as we do by the time you’re through!
LANTERN REVIEW: How did you come to poetry?
INDRANI SENGUPTA: In grade school, we were given an assignment to write short free verse poems about natural artifacts: sun, sea, moon, earth, the like. I remember putting the full freight of my nine-year-old vocabulary into making them as pretty and wastefully lavish as possible. My teacher was pleased. My mother read them aloud over and over. I couldn’t stand it. I think I realized even then that there was something dishonest in what I’d written, so full of self-conscious beauty and so devoid of rage (which I had plenty of). I flirted with poetry for several years, writing well-behaved poems. I don’t think it was until I started reading poets like me — contemporary, female, brown — that I realized what poetry could actually be. Thorny, volatile, stunningly unfinished, devastating to writer and reader alike.
LR: What interests or obsessions are driving your work right now?
IS: Bodies, as they pertain to reproductive trauma and sexual assault, as they function in medical spaces, domestic spaces, garden spaces, hortus conclususes, witchcraft, the mythological canon, and the fairy tale canon. That’s . . . a lot of somewhat disparate topics, but I think the anchor point is always the body. Not even mine, necessarily. I’ve been enjoying getting into the sleeves of archetypal personas and anatomizing them from inside out.
LR: What’s one writing ritual or self-care practice that helps sustain you?
IS: The only thing that works for me is a sustained, penciled-in writing routine. It’s not as sexy as spontaneous inspiration, but I like to think there’s something good and worshipful about sitting with yourself for three hours and throwing nothing at a nothing-wall until something appears. For company, I keep a running doc of breathtaking poems from different journals and books that have nothing to do with each other, a running list of exciting words and orphaned lines that I want to use someday, and string lights that only come on when I’m writing (an attempt at conjuration).
Another completely unrelated practice: Dungeons & Dragons! It’s kind of like an act of communal, extemporaneous writing where you cannot fail—only die a little.
LR: What are some of your favorite poetry collections of the moment?
LR: Looking back, what’s something you wish you could tell your younger self?
IS: Back in school, I once got feedback to play more with my work. I could not for the life of me figure out how. I thought I was already pushing the limits of what I was capable of. It took many years of hindsight to understand, and maybe I’m still in the process of understanding. If I could go back, I’d translate like so: throw out the loved image; interrupt the music; write the poem that doesn’t wrap neatly, that guts itself as it goes. Reapproach the work without a plan or a conscience. The good thing is, nowadays I have no real plan for anything. It’s terrifying! And I think that terror’s so very useful.
LR: What does “Asian American futures” mean to you?
IS: I attended grade school in India, but my first exposure to poetry was through the British canon. And I’m grateful to it, but I often think of who I’d be today if I’d encountered contemporary Asian American poetry sooner, or first. My hope for the future that kids like me (and unlike me) have that chance. Rework, expand, explode the canon.
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Many thanks to Indrani for sitting down with us to chat! For more from her, check out some of her poems here and here. And if you’re an Asian American poet or artist aged 14–24 and you haven’t yet already checked out our youth folio call for submissions, head on over to our Submittable page—there’s just under a week left to send us your work!
Please consider supporting an BIPOC-owned indie bookstore with your purchase.
As an Asian American–focused publication, Lantern Review stands for diversity within the literary world. In solidarity with other communities of color and in an effort to connect our readers with a wider range of voices, we recommend a different collection by a non-Asian-American-identified BIPOC poet in each blog post.
If you’re new to the world of literary publishing, read through this post for some tips before you head on over to send us your work.
[NOTE: This post was originally published to coincide with the launch of our youth folio submissions period in 2021. We’ve since updated the content to be more generally relevant to any occasion.]
There’s nothing we love more than the start of a new submissions period—we’re always so excited to see your poems and art! Because we know that this might be the first time some of you are submitting to a literary journal, we thought we’d take some time today to discuss our best tips for navigating the submissions process. The advice below is geared toward sending your work to Lantern Review, but much of it will also apply to other literary journals. (Just remember that every publication is different, so be sure to read the specific guidelines for wherever you send your work!) Whether you’re new to sending out your stuff for publication—or you just want a quick refresher—these four key steps are an easy recipe to help you get started.
Step 1: Get to know the journal.
Before you begin, it’s a good idea to research any journal you’re submitting to. Take some time to read through past issues if they’re available, and look at whom they’ve published in the past to get a feel for the kind of work they like. (At Lantern Review, you can read our current issue here and browse our archive of older issues here.) As you read, ask yourself: What themes does this magazine tend to be interested in? Is there a style of work that they seem to publish a lot? Have they published any work in the past that seems similar to mine?Are there any pieces they’ve published that I really admire?
The idea is to get a sense of whether your work would fit well with what the journal usually publishes—as well as which of your pieces the editors might be most interested in. (For example, if the journal hasn’t published any poems that rhyme in the past, and you have some poems that rhyme and some that don’t—then you’ll know that you should send only unrhymed pieces.)
So what kind of work do we like to publish at Lantern Review? We talk about this and other related topics in our Submissions FAQ (which we highly encourage you to read!). But here’s what we have to say about our magazine’s particular stylistic preferences:
We love poems that surprise and challenge us; that are musical and filled with vivid, concrete imagery; that play with language in new and interesting ways; that take risks; that have something distinct to say. We tend to prefer unrhymed, free verse poems. Note: we no longer publish translations. To get the best idea of what we publish, we encourage you to read through a few of our past issues.
[. . .]
For visual art, we’re looking for abstract photos and digital or traditional work in mediums like watercolor, oil, acrylic, lino or woodblock, or collage. We like to choose images that we can easily juxtapose with text, either in the body of the magazine or as cover art. We’re fond of moody or earthy color palettes, striking contrast, and interestingly textured play with shadow and light. As stated above, the best way to get an idea of the type of art we publish is to look at our past issues.
Other journals will have different preferences than ours, but regardless of where you’re submitting, it’s a good rule of thumb to take a poke around a magazine’s website or blog for any information about what they’re interested in publishing (tip: you’ll often find it tucked away on the “about” or “submissions” pages)—and then use that to help you decide what to submit.
Step 2: Read the guidelines. (Yes, really!)
It might sound like a no-brainer, but we can’t tell you how many submissions we receive that we unfortunately can’t review because the submitter did not read the guidelines—from sending us work in genres that we don’t publish to attaching book-length manuscripts that are far too long for us to consider. No matter where you’re sending your work, it’s important that you follow the guidelines carefully! Editors and staff readers see a lot of submissions at once, so if an entry does not meet the guidelines, they might not be able to give it their full attention. Abiding by the rules gives your submission the fairest chance possible.
At Lantern Review, we have a set of general guidelines that apply to all submissions, as well as specific instructions that apply to work for each category (poetry or art). And as is the case for many magazines, you’ll need to know a couple of publishing-industry terms. Here’s a quick breakdown of what they mean.
Rights revert to the author upon publication of the work. Most US-based literary journals claim what are known as first North American serial rights. This means that the magazine reserves the right to be the first North American periodical to publish a piece. However, journals usually do not hold onto the rights to a piece after it’s published. When a magazine states that “rights revert to the author upon publication of the work,” it means that after the issue containing your piece comes out, you (the author) own the rights again. When a journal says this, it generally means two things. First, you shouldn’t submit any work to them that has previously been published. Second, you don’t need to ask the magazine’s permission to republish the piece after the issue comes out (though most journals appreciate a short acknowledgment in the republished version—something like “This poem was first published in Lantern Review“).
Simultaneous submissions. A simultaneous submission is a piece that more than one journal is considering at the same time. As long as the guidelines say so, most magazines (like us!) are fine with this; they’ll just ask you to tell them which pieces are simultaneous submissions—and to inform them if another magazine accepts a piece before they do. There’s also an unstated etiquette rule here: it’s really bad form not to tell a magazine when a piece is no longer available because another journal’s accepted it first. So be sure to write or message the editors right away if you’re lucky enough for this to happen! (Don’t worry; no one will be offended—in fact, they’ll probably congratulate you on your news.) And rest assured: even if you withdraw a piece from consideration because it’s been accepted elsewhere, most journals (like us!) will still read and consider the rest of your poems.
Once you’ve read through the guidelines, you might find that you still have some questions. If that’s the case, you should first refer to any FAQs (here are ours) that a journal may have available on their website. If you can’t find the answer there, then go ahead and email the editors—if they’re anything like us, most will be delighted to answer your questions!
Step 3: Prepare a cover letter and bio.
In the literary publishing world, it’s normal to send a cover letter with each submission. Fortunately, this isn’t the high-pressure sort of cover letter that you send with job applications! In a literary cover letter, you usually just need to introduce yourself and your work and let the editors know of any important special information (like if some of the pieces are simultaneous submissions). If you’d like a great basic template to help you draft your letter, we suggest looking at this one from Adroit.
When you’re writing your cover letter, try to use slightly more formal language, and make sure that you’re addressing the editors accurately in your greeting. Many people begin their cover letters with just a simple “Dear editors,” but you can also look up and include the editors’ first names in your greeting if you like. If you do this, be sure to double check your spelling, and avoid adding titles like “Mr.,” “Ms.,” or “Dr.” unless you know the editors and their preferred titles personally.
Many journals will also ask you to include a short bio with your submission. Lantern Review asks you to put this information in your cover letter, but other magazines might ask you to include it in a separate field in the submission form. Literary bios are usually short and are written in the third person (i.e., not “I” or “me”). Most include some information about the poet or artist’s identity and/or location, any notable past publications and awards, and even (sometimes) a couple of fun facts—like about pets or hobbies. Here’s a great example of a bio from a student we published in Issue 4:
Susan Li is 18 years old. She was born and raised and still lives in Brooklyn, where she graduated from Brooklyn Technical High School. She is currently attending Hunter College and pursuing a degree in Creative Writing and Philosophy, with a minor in Asian American Studies.
Step 4: Put together your best work and send it in!
Take a look at your work and choose a few pieces you’re proud of and think the magazine editors might like, too. How many you send is up to you—but definitely don’t send any more than the maximum number allowed (for Lantern Review, that’s four). We also think it’s a good strategy to send more than just one! Not only does sending more than one piece help editors to get a better sense of your work; it also gives them more options to choose from. For example, if the Lantern Review team gets a submission with three pieces in it, we might like the second or third piece even if we don’t want to publish the first. If you only send one poem, you’re only giving yourself one chance to get our attention.
If you’re a poet (the following doesn’t apply to visual art submissions), combine the pieces you’ve chosen into a single document (editors call this a manuscript or an MS or MSS), in whatever format the guidelines suggest. While you’re compiling your manuscript, it’s also a good idea to think about the order you want editors to read each poem in. If you can’t decide, at least try to put the strongest poem first!
Give your cover letter and manuscript one last, final proofread—then head on over to the submission form, and hit “send.” Congratulations; you’ve just submitted your work!
Extra Credit: Say “thank you” when you get your reply.
After you submit to a journal, you can generally expect to wait anywhere from several weeks to a few months before you get a reply. Most journals will give you an estimate of their response time (ours is eight weeks after the close of the submission period). If you don’t hear back within that time, it’s okay to send a polite message asking for a status update! But once you do get an official acceptance or rejection, it’s really nice if you can send a short reply. For acceptances, you’ll usually need to reply in order to give the journal written permission to publish your work. For rejections, replying is totally optional, but if you get a personalized rejection (which is when an editor writes back encouragement or feedback or asks you to consider submitting again), that’s considered a compliment—so it’s generally a good idea to write back with a quick note of thanks!
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We know it takes guts to put your work out there—but we hope that this breakdown has helped make at least the submissions process at Lantern Review feel a little less intimidating and mysterious. We encourage you to check out our Submissions FAQ and to email us at editors [at] lanternreview [dot] com if you have any questions. We’re here for you! And we’re ready and waiting to read your work.
Please consider supporting an indie bookstore with your purchase.
As an Asian American–focused publication, Lantern Review stands for diversity within the literary world. In solidarity with other communities of color and in an effort to connect our readers with a wider range of voices, we recommend a different collection by a non-Asian-American-identified BIPOC poet in each blog post.
This season, we’re privileged to welcome Eugenia Leigh to our team as guest editor. Eugenia is the author of Blood, Sparrows and Sparrows (Four Way Books, 2014) and the recipient of fellowships and awards from Poets & Writers magazine, Kundiman, Rattle, and elsewhere. She’s previously served as poetry editor at Kartika Review and Hyphen magazine, and she’s also a past contributor to the magazine and the blog here at Lantern Review. As Eugenia will be working closely with us to curate and produce the magazine this season, we thought we’d take a minute to help you get to know her. Read on to learn about some of her favorite reads of 2020, the Word document she keeps on her desktop for inspiration, what “Asian American futures” means to her, and more.
LANTERN REVIEW: How did you come to poetry?
EUGENIA LEIGH: Like many children from dysfunctional, abusive homes, I was taught to lie about my life as a child. Given that my parents were also pursuing ministry work in Korean Christian churches, the lying was even more imperative to maintain the illusion of our nice family. This made for a pretty lonely childhood. In junior high, an English teacher gave us the assignment to adopt a poet of our choosing, create a report, and recite one of their poems from memory for the class. I chose Anne Sexton randomly with no knowledge of who she was, and I recited a posthumously published poem, “Red Roses”—a poem about child abuse, thinly veiled. I still remember reciting this poem to the class and feeling the electricity of being able to tell at least one small truth in this artful way. After discovering Anne Sexton and the confessional poets, I often turned toward poetry to process and work through a lot of my ongoing childhood trauma during my teenage years. I’ve grown comfortable admitting that before poetry became an “artistic pursuit,” poetry was first an important coping mechanism and survival tool for me.
LR: What’s something you wish you had known when you were just starting out as a writer?
EL: When I was a senior at UCLA, a dear older white male poet announced to our poetry workshop—after critiquing one of my poems—that “if you’re forty and you’re a poet, then you’re a poet. But if you’re twenty and you’re a poet, you’re just twenty.” I’m nearly forty now, and I can still recall the humiliation of that statement, which stayed with me longer than it should have. When I was starting out as a writer, I wish I’d known to block out the many toxic voices I allowed into my ever-anxious, ever-insecure mind. I wish I’d believed in myself and in my writing, and I wish I’d applied for every chance to learn, grow, and showcase my work. I wish I’d had Michelle Obama’s voice to quiet my imposter syndrome by saying, “I have been at probably every powerful table that you can think of, I have worked at nonprofits, I have been at foundations, I have worked in corporations, served on corporate boards, I have been at G-summits, I have sat in at the UN; they are not that smart.”
LR: What interests or obsessions are driving your work right now?
EL: A few years ago, I was diagnosed with bipolar II disorder and complex PTSD, and this has fueled a new interest in the ways mental illness intersects with intergenerational trauma, especially within Asian American (and more specifically, Korean American) families. As a new parent, I’m also interested in narratives that upend the curated, Instagrammable stories of parenthood and have been a little hellbent on putting the uglier bits of this life into my newer poems.
LR: What are some of your favorite poetry collections of the moment?
EL: A few favorite poetry collections from 2020 that I can’t stop thinking about or recommending to people: John Murillo’sKontemporary Amerikan Poetry, Leila Chatti’sDeluge, Yona Harvey’s You Don’t Have to Go to Mars for Love, and Choi Seungja’sPhone Bells Keep Ringing for Me(translated by Won-Chung Kim and Cathy Park Hong). I’m also pretty obsessed with these 2020 nonfiction books by Korean American poets: Cathy Park Hong’sMinor Feelings and E. J. Koh’sThe Magical Language of Others—both of which made me cry multiple times. I feel actual gratitude that all these books are out in the world.
LR: What’s one writing ritual or self-care practice that helps sustain you?
EL: I keep a Word document on my desktop called “Anthology of Quotes”—an ongoing collection of inspirational quotes to keep me going when I want to quit. I read through it when I feel unable to continue writing. A lot of Audre Lorde in there, some philosophers, even some from contemporary actors or anonymous quotes floating around Instagram. And one Bible verse (though I’ve completely forgotten its context now): “They were all trying to frighten us, thinking, ‘Their hands will get too weak for the work, and it will not be completed.’ But I prayed, ‘Now strengthen my hands’” (from the book of Nehemiah, chapter 6, verse 9).
LR: In keeping with this season’s theme, what does “Asian American futures” mean to you?
EL: When I think of “Asian American futures,” I imagine new generations of Asian American poets putting to paper what our parents, grandparents, and ancestors could never bring themselves to say. I envision poetry that refuses to wait around for permission. Poetry with an urgency that matches the times. Poetry that cost the poet something to write.
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We hope you’ll join us in welcoming Eugenia to our editorial team for the season! For more from her, check out her website—or head on over to read our previous interview with her, right here on the LR blog.(And don’t forget to send us your own takes on “Asian American futures”! Our regular open submissions periodcloses on February 11th.)
Please consider supporting an indie bookstore with your purchase.
As an Asian American–focused publication, Lantern Review stands for diversity within the literary world. In solidarity with other communities of color and in an effort to connect our readers with a wider range of voices, we recommend a different collection by a non-Asian-American-identified BIPOC poet in each blog post.
All your pressing questions answered: read on below before you submit!
[MARCH 2022 NOTE: The information in this post pertains to our 2021 season, which is now over. For information about our current (2022) season, please this post instead.]
Our first submissions period of the season is officially open as of this morning! Over the years, we’ve been asked a lot of really great questions about our submissions process, so today on the blog, we thought we’d take some time to answer a few of the most frequently asked. First time sending us work? Or new to lit mag submissions in general? Before you head on over to check out our official guidelines on Submittable, we encourage you to take a quick read through the following.
1. What types of poems do you publish?
We love poems that surprise and challenge us, that are musical and filled with vivid, concrete imagery; that play with language in new and interesting ways; that take risks; that have something distinct to say. We tend to prefer unrhymed, free verse poems. We no longer publish translations. To get the best idea of what we publish, we encourage you to read through a few of our past issues.
2. What kind of art are you looking for?
For visual art, we’re looking for paintings in traditional mediums (like watercolor, oil, acrylic); lino or woodblock prints; collage; and abstract photos that we can juxtapose with poems and maybe even use as cover art. We’re fond of moody, monochrome color palettes, striking contrast, and interestingly textured play with shadow and light. As stated above, the best way to get an idea of the type of art we publish is to look at our past issues.
3. How many times can I submit? Can I submit to both the poetry and visual art categories?Can I send you work during both reading periods this year?
You’re welcome to submit to both categories in a given reading period! However, please submit only once per category during that period. Additionally, this year, our second reading period (Mar/Apr) is reserved for Asian American writers and artists aged 14–24 only, while our current reading period (Jan/Feb) is for Asian American poets and artists of any age. We ask that you please respect these categories and only submit during the appropriate reading period.
4. If I’ve been published by LR before, can I submit again?
We ask contributors to wait one calendar year/season after publication before submitting again. (This means that anyone we published in 2020 should not submit this year.) Otherwise, past contribs are welcome to submit again!
5. Do I have to be Asian American for you to publish my work?
Our mission is to highlight Asian American poetry and art. At the present moment, that means we’re prioritizing work from writers and artists who identify as Asian American. We also realize that “Asian American” is a broad and complex category—but bottom line, if you self-identify as Asian American, we want to see your work! (And if you don’t, we’d ask you to respectfully refrain from submitting.)
6. How many poems should I send?
Our guidelines specify a maximum of four poems totaling no more than than eight pages. (Please don’t send more than that; we won’t be able to read the extra poems.) But within that limit, feel free to send as many or as few as you’d like! It is often a good strategy to send at least a couple if you’re also sending your work to other journals, however—that way, if one of your poems gets snapped up by another magazine first, we still have something to choose from if we want to publish your work.
7. Can I email you my work instead of using Submittable?
Unfortunately, we don’t accept unsolicited submissions via email. If you experience a problem with our Submittable forms, feel free to ask us about it via email, but we’ll still eventually ask you to submit your work via Submittable. This is actually a good thing for submitters—it’s easier to keep track of submissions when they’re all in one place, so by sending your work via Submittable only, you help ensure that we won’t accidentally miss or lose your work!
8. Your guidelines say that a poem can’t be previously published. What counts as “previously published”?
“Previously published” means that a piece has previously appeared in a published periodical (such as a literary journal), anthology, chapbook, or collection (book), whether in print or online. This includes self-published chapbooks and books. (As a literary magazine, we claim standard first North American serial rights, and rights revert to you upon publication.) However, if you’ve simply performed the poem at an event, posted it on your blog, or shared it on your personal social media, we don’t consider it published. We realize there are lots of ambiguous cases out there, though, so if you’re ever unsure whether a piece that you intend to submit counts as “previously published,” please don’t hesitate to send us an email and ask!
9. What are simultaneous submissions? What if my work gets accepted somewhere else while it’s still being considered by Lantern Review?
Simultaneous submissions are pieces that are currently being considered by more than one journal or contest. LR allows submitters to send in simultaneous submissions, but should a piece be accepted elsewhere, you must immediately contact us to withdraw it. The easiest way to do this is to message us on Submittable or to add a note to your submission indicating which piece is no longer available.
10. Submittable says that you are not accepting submissions, but the deadline hasn’t passed yet. What’s going on?
This probably means that we’ve maxed out our submissions limit for the month. Submittable limits small publications like ours to a certain number of total submissions per calendar month. Once we’ve received that number of submissions, the form automatically shuts down for a time. Unfortunately, this is not something we have control over—but the good news is that the form will always reopen (and the counter will reset) with the start of the next calendar month. Should this happen before the end of January/March, we are so sorry—but please don’t worry! The form will be up and running again on February 1st/April 1st.
11. How soon will you get back to me?
We aim to get back to you within about eight weeks’ time after the submissions period ends. However, we’re a very small team, and occasionally, there may be delays. We ask for your patience while we go through the pile; please know that we haven’t forgotten you if you don’t hear from us right away after submitting—we’re working through as quickly as we possibly can.
12. Given the theme, “Asian American futures,” does my work have to be about the future? Does it have to be about being Asian American?
Your work never has to be “about” being Asian American. We love getting to highlight the enormous diversity of topics and themes that contemporary Asian American poets are writing about—we’re so much more than boba and rice! Regarding the “future” part of the 2021 season theme, if you’re submitting to our Jan/Feb open submissions period, then, yes, we ask that the pieces you send have the future in mind in some way. If you’re 14–24 and submitting to our Youth Folio (Mar/Apr), then your work does not need to specifically be about the future—we consider that you (and your perspectives) already are the future of Asian America.
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We hope this helps to clarify our submissions process a bit! We encourage you to send in your work early and to carefully read both our general guidelines and the guidelines for your category (poetry or art) before hitting “Submit.” And as always, please don’t hesitate to reach out via email (editors [at] lanternreview [dot] com) or on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram (@LanternReview) should you have any questions. We look forward to reading your work!
Please consider supporting an indie bookstore with your purchase.
As an Asian American–focused publication, Lantern Review stands for diversity within the literary world. In solidarity with other communities of color and in an effort to connect our readers with a wider range of voices, we recommend a different collection by a non-Asian-American-identified BIPOC poet in each blog post.
