LR News: Introducing Our 2011-2012 Staff Writers!

Today, the LR Blog is pleased to officially welcome our new team of Staff Writers for the 2011-2012 school year:

  • Interviewer Wendy Chin-Tanner, who is new to our team this year, will be chronicling her conversations with different Asian American poets from month to month.
  • Returning Staff Writer Henry W. Leung will be transitioning out of his previous role as a reviewer, and into a new position as a Columnist.  His new column, “Panax Ginseng,” will explore themes of transnationalism, multi-lingual blending, and hybridity in texts of both poetry and prose.
  • Returning Staff Writer and Columnist Kelsay Myers will continue to reflect on her experiences in the M.F.A. program at Saint Mary’s College of California through her column “Becoming Realer,” and will also occasionally contribute other content (such as interviews).
  • Reviewer Jai Arun Ravine, who is also new to our team this year, will be writing about different, recently-published books, chapbooks, and/or issues of literary journals each month.

We feel privileged to be able to welcome (or, in the case of our returning writers, welcome back) such a strong, cohesive team. We have an exciting lineup of posts planned for this fall, and are confident that you will enjoy the content that Wendy, Henry, Kelsay, and Jai will be contributing to the blog. To read more about each individual Staff Writer, please see their bios on the updated Blog Masthead. You’ll see the first of our staff-written posts for the year (an interview conducted by Wendy Chin-Tanner) appear later this week.

Cheers to the new year, and a warm welcome (once again) to our new team.

Iris & Mia
LR Editorial Staff

Friday Prompt: Writing Ritual

 

Rainbow trout from Silver Lake

Some families hike, some families play board games, some families get together to roll dumplings.  My family goes fishing.  And we always have.  My dad fishes with gear inherited from his dad, whose rod and net have been mended and re-mended so many times I wouldn’t be surprised if they were passed on from his dad’s dad.  Certainly, the rhythm of baiting the hook, casting the line and settling back to wait for a bite is something passed through generations.

My brother and I remarked on our last fishing trip that, when waiting behind a cast line on the side of a lake somewhere, it’s as if we sit waiting not only with each other and our dad, but with his dad as well—who passed on many years ago.  There’s a kind of comfort in this ritual, as if when gathering to bait and lure our lines, we gather to join the family members–both passed on and present—who have practiced these same steps through time.

And so our prompt for this week, taken from Kim Addonizio and Dorianne Laux’s The Poet’s Companion: A Guide to the Pleasures of Writing Poetry (Norton, 1997), is:

Use a family anecdote, or a family ritual, as a leaping-off point for saying something about how your family or the world works.

If it helps, think first about the material reality of the ritual you intend to write about.  If it’s fishing you’re thinking of, research the anatomy of the fish.  Find out how its breathing apparatus works, what it is exactly that lines those “frightening gills.”  Learn the jargon of fisherfolk: the brand names of the bait, the particularities of lures and bobbers and lines.  Think of this as an opportunity not only to, as Laux and Addonizio put it, “sa[y] something about how your family or the world works,” but also to say something about how the ritual itself works.

Don’t enter the poem planning to say something earth-shattering (about your family, or anything).  Enter the poem with respect for the ritual in question, those who have conducted it in the past and the materiality of its “steps” as they unfold.  More often than not, it’s by examining the mechanisms of our lives that we reach fresh insight—but let this come to you through the writing.

*  *  *

Note: Also see Iris’ February prompt about the family rituals we engage in when “turning the year.”  Though we’re still a ways off from New Year’s, many of us still feel the seasonal “turn” of fall (especially with Daylight Savings approaching!), and have our own private rituals built around welcoming this time of year.

LR News: Best of the Net 2011 Nominees

The Lantern Review editorial board is pleased to announce that we have selected two poems to nominate for Sundress Publications’ 2011 Best of the Net Anthology. They are, in order of appearance in our magazine:

“Northwest Poem” by W. Todd Kaneko

“Vestige” by Michelle Peñaloza

Both poems originally appeared in Lantern Review Issue 2 (Winter 2011).

* * *

About the Nominated Poets

W. Todd Kaneko
W. Todd Kaneko

W. Todd Kaneko is not cool enough to be a rock star, not tall enough to be a professional wrestler, and not virtuous enough to be a super-hero.* His stories and poems can be seen in Puerto Del Sol, Crab Creek Review, Fairy Tale Review, Portland Review, Southeast Review, Blackbird, The Huffington Post, and elsewhere. He has received fellowships from Kundiman and the Kenyon Review Writer’s Workshop. He teaches in the Department of Writing at Grand Valley State University. He lives in Grand Rapids, Michigan with the writer Caitlin Horrocks.

*Editorial Disclaimer: Todd’s appraisal of himself; not ours.  We think he’s a lot cooler than he admits.

* * *

Michelle Peñazola
Michelle Peñaloza (Photo: Janna Ireland)

Michelle Peñaloza grew up in Nashville, Tennessee and earned her M.F.A. in Creative Writing from the University of Oregon. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Nashville Review, Lantern Review, Birmingham Poetry Review and Bellingham Review, among others. She received the 2011 Women Writers’ Literary Fellowship, awarded by Oregon Literary Arts, and currently serves as director of the Kidd Tutorials at the University of Oregon.

* * *

Congratulations to Todd and Michelle.  We are honored to be represented by such fine work, and wish each of you the best of luck in the judging process!

Friday Prompt: Answering Questions

Burning through the fog
"Writing is the act of burning through the fog in your mind." - Natalie Goldberg

In one chapter of her beloved book Writing Down the Bones, Natalie Goldberg urges young writers to  “Make Statements and Answer Questions.”  I’ve taught her chapter on the importance of being specific before, but I decided to add this chapter to my syllabus for the first time this Fall, and as the semester has progressed, I’ve been finding myself returning to the raw courage of its advice again and again—both in my teaching, and in my own writing.  In “Make Statements and Answer Questions,” Goldberg observes that many young writers (and indeed, experienced writers, too) feel timid about putting their ideas out into the world, and so, in their hesitancy, they often fill their writing with questions and indefinite statements (“Isn’t that terrible?” “Maybe she’s right”).  There is indeed something quite vulnerable about the act of writing for an audience—of making a claim and expecting others to listen to it.  To do so requires boldness, a kind of brash willingness to allow one’s own ideas to stand alone, at the risk that one’s audience might not agree.  Goldberg encourages us to cut the apron strings, so to speak, by challenging ourselves to confidently answer each question we find ourselves asking: “Making statements,” she writes, “is practice in trusting your own mind, in learning to stand up with your thoughts” (93-4)  And later:

“Don’t be afraid to answer the questions. You will find endless resources inside yourself. Writing is the act of burning through the fog in your mind. Don’t carry the fog out on paper. Even if you are not sure of something, express it as though you know yourself. With this practice, you eventually will” (94).

Call it the partner to the questions prompt that Mia posted in 2009, if you will: today’s prompt was inspired by Goldberg’s call to write with confidence.

Prompt: Write a poem consisting entirely of answers to questions. Try to mix answers to small, concrete questions (such as “May I have a second slice of cake?”) with answers to bigger, nearly unanswerable questions (like “What do trees do when they feel cold in winter?”).

Review: Two Works by Ronaldo V. Wilson

Ronaldo V. Wilson
Two Works by Ronaldo V. Wilson

A Guest Post by Stephen Hong Sohn, Assistant Professor of English at Stanford University

Narrative of the Life of the Brown Boy and the White Manby Ronaldo V. Wilson | U of Pittsburgh Press 2008 | $14

Poems of the Black Objectby Ronaldo V. Wilson | FuturePoem Books 2009 | $15

Stephen Hong Sohn
Stephen Hong Sohn

In this review, I discuss Ronaldo V. Wilson’s Narrative of the Life of the Brown Boy and the White Man (University of Pittsburgh Press 2008) and Poems of the Black Object (FuturePoem Books 2009). Wilson’s first full-length poetry collection might be more specifically described as prose poetry, as implied by its title. There are really no formal line breaks throughout the collection, so one is forced to consider what makes such a work poetry as opposed to prose. This genre-defying work’s title also clearly derives inspiration from two canonical African American literary texts: Harriet Jacobs’s Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl and Frederick Douglass’s Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave. In Wilson’s title, there isn’t any mention of the word “slave,” but the impulse to explore the conditions of subjection and domination are still very much there. Wilson’s work thus seems to enact a neo-slave “poetic” as derived through the queer racial minority’s subjectivity. The reference to the “brown boy” and the “white man” in the title also helps situate what actually occurs in the prose poetry blocks throughout the collection. “Brown boy” suggests that the lyric “I” is a mixed-race subject and likely an adult, but clearly one who does not have much access to economic resources. He is engaged in a homosexual relationship with “White Man,” someone likely older and with clearly far more money than the “Brown Boy.” Racial difference, class difference, and age difference, among other such distinctions, generate the rubrics of power and domination that mark the tension between “white man” and the “brown boy.”   Wilson’s work is raw, dense, and does not shy away from difficult topics, as demonstrated by the following excerpt, which is fairly indicative of the stylistic impulses of the collection:

“Go Shower. This command reveals [the brown boy’s] relationship to the white man. He follows his lover’s orders like a slave without anything but the promise of being fed and shown a movie” (64).

Continue reading “Review: Two Works by Ronaldo V. Wilson” →

LR News: We’re Back! (New Developments for Fall 2011)

Welcome back to a new academic year at Lantern Review!  Along with the return of the blog, this Fall brings with it a number of exciting developments—some of which we will reveal incrementally as the season progresses, but a few of which we are delighted to be able to share with you today.  Read on for a couple of important announcements, as well as a teaser of what is yet to come.

Issue 4 Reading Period

Our reading period for Issue 4 is now open. We urge you to consider sending some work our way, and to help spread the word however you can!  As always, we’re interested in original, well-crafted poetry that takes a fresh, unusual approach to the notion of “Asian American poetry”—but please don’t forget that we are also interested in visual art, new translations, collaborative pieces, and (critically relevant) essays on poetics!   For those of you who have submitted before, please note that there has been a slight change to our previous set of guidelines: whereas previously, we asked that bio’s be 2-3 sentences in length, we are now requesting that they be no more than 1-2 sentences long.

Friday Prompts

This year on the LR Blog, the posts that were formerly known as “Weekly Prompts” will now be categorized as “Friday Prompts,” in order to allow for greater variety and flexibility in our weekly schedule.  If you take a look at the categories in the sidebar, you’ll notice that we’ve changed the “Weekly Prompts” slug to “Friday Prompts” accordingly.  Not to worry, though, if you’ve previously linked to one of our prompts—the permalinks for all past Weekly Prompt posts will remain the same, so there’s no need to update your links.

Teaser: Best of the Net Nominations, New Staff Writers, and more

As October deepens into mid-Fall, we’ll be rolling out many more new developments.  Next week, we’ll be announcing our 2011 Best of the Net Nominees, and the following week, we will introduce our team of staff writers for the 2011-2012 academic year.  We also have plenty of exciting new reviews and interviews and a brand new column planned for the fall, so please continue to keep your eyes peeled in the weeks to come!

LR News: Issue Three has arrived! (And we’re off on hiatus).

Issue 3: LANTERN REVIEW
LR Issue 3

It is with great pleasure that we announce the arrival of Issue Three of Lantern Review!

This stunning new volume, which features Julie Kim’s haunting black and white photograph “Still” on its cover, contains 52 pages of poetry and visual art as well as a powerful “Community Voices” section featuring work by poets from the Hmong American Writers’ Circle.  The issue also includes two selections (contributed by Rachelle Cruz and Kathleen Hellen, respectively) from our 2011 post-AWP Postcard Project, as well as a beautiful visual poem by digital artist and Kundiman poet Monica Ong. For the first time, we’ve also incorporated a tool that allows you to explore these visual poems more closely by clicking and zooming in on them. (This tool requires that Javascript be enabled in order to work, so if necessary, please take a moment to turn it on before entering the issue. Details about how to navigate the “zoom” tool are provided on the issue’s masthead).

Our stellar lineup of contributors also includes: poets Jen Y. Cheng, Wendy Chin-Tanner, Shayok (Misha) Chowdhury, Oliver de la Paz, Clara Changxin Fang, Kim Koga, Eugenia Leigh, Kim-An Lieberman, Vikas K. Menon, Pos L. Moua, Hong-Thao Nguyen, Melissa R. Sipin, Mai Der Vang, Andre Yang, and Sandra M. Yee, as well as visual artists Joseph Marconi Calindas, Michelle Chandra, and Natalia Ricotta.

To enter the issue, click here, or on the cover image at the top of this post.

We hope that you enjoy the issue, and would love to hear your feedback on both its content and its technical navigability—simply send us an email at editors [at] lanternreview(dot) com.  In the meantime, we are heading off on a late-summer Blog Hiatus (during which time we’ll be taking a break from posting to the blog, but will still be contactable via other means, like email and Facebook), and wish you all the best until we return on October 3rd.

Many thanks, as always, for your continued support of LR,

Iris & Mia
LR Editorial Board

Friends & Neighbors: Rounding Out the Summer

Our friends and contributors have been busy this summer!  Here are a few bits of exciting news that have floated our way these past few months:

* * *

Kuwento for Lost Things [ed. Rachelle Cruz and Melissa Sipin]
is accepting submissions

Kuwento for Lost Things Anthology
KUWENTO FOR LOST THINGS Anthology

LR Contributors Melissa Sipin (whose work is forthcoming in Issue 3) and Rachelle Cruz (whose work appeared in Issue 1 and who has a postcard poem forthcoming in Issue 3), are co-editing an anthology of phillipine mythology called Kuwento for Lost Things, and are accepting submissions of poetry, prose, and visual art through January 15, 2012.  Submissions guidelines are available here. Please help their project get off the ground by liking or following them on Facebook or Twitter, respectively, and by sending some work their way! Visit their web site here: http://kuwentoforlostthings.wordpress.com/

* * *

Angela Veronica Wong wins a Poetry Society of America NY Chapbook Fellowship

Many congratulations to Issue 1 contributor Angela Veronica Wong, whose chapbook Dear Johnny, In Your Last Letter, was selected by Bob Hicok for a 2011 PSA New York Chapbook Fellowship! A short writeup about Veronica and the other Kundiman fellow who won this year (Alison Roh Park) that appeared on Poets & Writers ‘ contest blog  last week featured a short video clip of Veronica reading at LR‘s joint AWP reading with Boxcar Poetry Review this past February. (Read the article here).

* * *

Craig Santos Perez’s poetry CD, Undercurrent, now available on iTunes

UNDERCURRENT (Craig Santos Perez & Brandy Nalani McDougall)

Issue 1 contributor Craig Santos Perez and Brandy Nalani McDougall have released a poetry CD called Undercurrent that features audio recordings of both artists reading their own poems.  Craig’s contributions are taken from his two collections, from unincorporated territory [hacha] (2008) and [saina] (2010).  Undercurrent is available for download on iTunes, or for purchase through Amazon.  An electronic version of the liner notes can be found on Craig’s blog.

* * *

Jai Arun Ravine’s first book available for order

Jai Arun Ravine's แล้ว AND THEN ENTWINE (Tinfish 2011)
Jai Arun Ravine's แล้ว AND THEN ENTWINE (Tinfish 2011)

Congratulations to Issue 1 contributor Jai Arun Ravine, whose first poetry collection, แล้ว and then entwine has been published by Tinfish! Doveglion has printed Jai’s reflections on the process of writing the book and its guest editor, Craig Santos Perez, has written about editing it on his own blog.  More information about ordering แ ล้ ว and then entwine can be found on Tinfish’s web site.

Continue reading “Friends & Neighbors: Rounding Out the Summer” →

Weekly Prompt: Homophonic Translation

 

Charles Bernstein | Courtesy of The Poetry Foundation

This week’s prompt is taken from leading Language poetry practitioner and theorist Charles Bernstein‘s “Experiments” (handily compiled by the University of Pennsylvania’s Electronic Poetry Center).  It asks you to venture into uncertain linguistic territory where meaning ceases to guide your composition (or in this case, translation) process and, instead, turns the reins over to sound.

We all know what homophones are, words that mean differently despite their (usually identical) sonic qualities (see/sea, their/there), and this exercise is one that relies almost exclusively on the odd transmutations of meaning that can happen when two words sound the same but signify different things… in different languages.

Though you will be working to translate a piece of poetry from another language into English, because the translation method is based on homophones and sound patterns rather than denotative/connotative meanings, your process will undoubtedly yield some wacky — but wonderful! — results.

Continue reading “Weekly Prompt: Homophonic Translation” →

Summer Reads: Issue 1 Contributor Rachelle Cruz

Welcome to our Summer Reads 2011 blog series!  Throughout the summer, we will be featuring recommended reading lists submitted by Lantern Review contributors who want to share titles they plan to read and want to suggest to the wider LR community.  This week features a set of reads from LR Issue 1 contributor Rachelle Cruz.

She writes:

I am so lucky to host a poetics radio program (The Blood-Jet Writing Hour) because it allows me to invite poets I am curious about and/or admire.  Although I feature poets of many different backgrounds, I seek to support and promote poetries of the Pacific Islands, Asia and their diasporas.  Summer is also the time for me to catch up on some fantastic Young Adult (YA) literature, poetry blogs/websites, and anthologies (hello, Norton!).

Below is just a small selection from my very long Summer 2011 Reading List.

Books:

*FROM UNINCORPORATED TERRITORY [SAINA]
by Craig Santos Perez
(Omnidawn, 2010)

Innovative, intertextual poetry that disrupts, navigates and de-navigates the histories of Guam (Guahan). I’ve just finished FROM UNINCORPORATED TERRITORY [HACHA] and I am excited to start Perez’s second book.

 

*BOUGH BREAKS
by Tamiko Beyer
(Meritage Press, 2011)

A fellow Kundiman poet who was also featured in LANTERN REVIEW! Her book seeks to interrogate queer motherhood, gender and the politics of adoption. Tamiko will be on the show with another Kundi, Hossannah Asuncion…

Continue reading “Summer Reads: Issue 1 Contributor Rachelle Cruz” →