CRWT 40.13 Contemporary Queer and Trans Asian American Poetry
Amidst grief and inheritance, migration and abandonment, is a name one gives oneself. In this poetry workshop, we will examine poetry collections by queer and trans Asian Americans from the late twentieth century to the present, discussing questions of translation, borders, crossings, and reconstructions of the self through second languages and first histories. What are the silences of queer futures? What does it mean to write from or of an identity? How does one write while disowned from one or more identities? Participants will be asked to contemplate these questions in a creative and analytical writing practice culminating in critique workshops and a final poetry portfolio. (Non-exhaustive) readings may include works by Ching-In Chen, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, Pamela Lu, Kazim Ali, and Nhu Xuan Nguyen, among others.