Janice Lee is a Korean-American writer, educator, and healer. She has written books in nearly all genres including fiction, creative nonfiction, and most recently poetry. Janice Lee’s most recent book of poems, Separation Anxiety, guides us through grief and healing in communication with nature, humans, animals, and the afterlife. Separation Anxiety gathers bits of humor, sadness, and hope through its movement of form. While reading Separation Anxiety, I was carefully placed in the cycle of healing and emotional hues shined onto me from page to page.
Read MoreAn Interview with Emilly Prado
I think that all of the work that I do shares the thread of community in some way, whether it's event planning, or writing, or DJing. I think that at the heart of my work is connection. Ultimately, no matter what I'm doing, whether it's teaching or even helping a nonprofit with their communications—that is all a form of connection. With my writing, specifically thinking about my younger self who wished to read something that would be more reflective of her experience….
Read MoreFatherhood, Fathers & Fathering
by: Sam Rivas, Contributor & Guest Author
Decanon Project features poems on Fathers, Fathering, and Fatherhood. Each poem demonstrates the complexities of masculinity and how it can either be rigid or softened in the role as a father. As someone who has my own complicated yet beautiful relationship with my father, I found the poem “Coniferous Fathers” by Michael Kleber-Diggsss to be relatable. Anytime I get a chance to see my father or any father fall out of the toxic masculinity cycle, I feel comforted by their letting go so they can love us softly. Happy Father’s Day to all of the newly loving fathers out there!
“As a Father of Daughters” by Hannah Aizenman
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Worldly Things by Michael Kleber-Diggsss
Poem: “Coniferous Fathers”
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Night Sky with Exit Wounds by Ocean Vuong
Poem: “To My Father/ My Future Son”
Celebrating the LGBTQ community
by: Sam Rivas, Contributor & Guest Author
@decanonproject features books by LGBTQ Writers of Color which bring intersectional communities together.
Happy Pride Month!
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Ocean Vuong, Night Sky with Exit Wounds
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Carmen Maria Machado, In the Dream House : A Memoir
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Natalie Diaz, Postcolonial Love Song
#pridemonth #lgbtqwriters #lgbtqcommunity #lgbtqpoets #creativewriting
AAPI HERITAGE month: Poetry
by: Sam Rivas, Contributor & Guest Author
De-canon project continues to celebrate AAPI writers’ poetry & art!
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Engine Empire poems By Cathy Park Hong
“Though once I was so decent from such humble backgrounds
my ma bit her arm to feed us brothers three.
Am I cursed? I drink the myrrh her life who forced me alive.
History intones catch up, catch up while a number rots, then another.” —-“Seed Seller's Sonnet” (61)
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The Cowherd’s Son poems by Rajiv MoHabir
“Why throw your bangles
in the river at all? Melt the gold
into a charm to keep you safe.
Henna is darkest before dawn
as mud that clings to the palm.
This is not a story of watermarks
or river lines. Your gold nose ring
has fallen amongst the reeds,
surely bringing shame to your family
should your in-laws tell your father.
What use is remorse when the leaf
will stain you in red anyway?
Tie your sari to your love's fabric.
Today everything you touch
turns to beauty.”—-“Henna” (71)
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Thousand Star Hotel poems By Bao Phi
“Did we light garlands of fire onto your sacred mountains,
push your people to tiny fingers of dry land,
explore what was already found,
then name your beautiful landmarks
after ourselves” ——“No Question” (54)
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Look by Solmaz Sharif poems
“a newlywed securing her updo
with grenade pins
a wall cleared of nails
for the ghosts to walk through”
——“Vulnerability Study” (44)
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Saina & Hacha by Craig Santos Perez
“i imagine it rains
to say home-
in different versions each view
becomes a migration
each 'arrival?
becomes "a fossil of skin'—“
—“ginen preterrain” from Saina (81)
“"the monitors tried to trick you and ask you something in
chamoru" he says
"and you got punished
if you didn't answer them in english'
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he explains how to minimize your shadow
depending on the angle of the sun”
—“from ta(la)ya” (37) from Hacha
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Echolalia in Script: A Collection of Asemic Writing by Sam Roxas-Chua
“At night, my god is a red swan,”(49)
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Hey, Marfa poems by Jeffrey Yang & paintings and drawings by Rackstraw Downes
(116) poem, “The Prisoner”
(58-59) drawings
Intersectional Feminism through the words of AAPI writers
by: Sam Rivas, Contributor & Guest Author
Asian American Pacific Islander writers whose books have conversations with one another on the theme of intersectional feminism and womanhood.
A Bestiary by Lily Hoang
“To prove our renowned endurance of pain, Vietnamese women
adorn their wrists with jade bracelets. In order to get the damn thing
on, one must distort the hand, almost breaking it. I have yellow
bruises for days, and yet: this is proof of our delicacy: how well we
take that agony and internalize it. The tighter the fit, the more suf-
fering the woman can persevere, the more beautiful she is considered.”—“on the RAT RACE” (18)
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Mosquito & Ant by Kimiko Hahn poems
“I realize now
how lithe I was when I thought
I was the ugly daughter--how
tremulous my beauty. I didn't know”
—“Wax Initial Correspondence to L…” (17)
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If They Come for Us by Fatimah Asghar
“you're a daughter until they
bury your mother, until you're not invited to your father's funeral.
you're a virgin until you get too drunk. you're muslim until you're not
a virgin. you're pakistani until they start throwing acid. you're muslim
until it's too dangerous. you're safe until you're alone. you're american
until the towers fall, until there's a border on your back.” — “Partition” (9)
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Over Pour by Jane Wong
“A river only rises
in rain. A river only courses in one
direction. I don't know if this is true.
My father points to a store across the street and I walk toward it
with purpose. In a storm, the sky has purpose.
To glance below and say: what for? The land,
the animals, the people sitting in front of a television,
alone. This is the definition of sacrifice.
What is all this leaving good for? To return a face
we keep for keeping's sake? My mother laughs into a bowl of soup
or blows on it because it is too hot. The purpose of a spool of thread
is to calculate distance. My mother left home in 1982.
The hem of her wedding dress is 7,326 miles and what for
More cactus flower in your mouth”
—- “Encyclopedia Vol.” (55)
AsIan American Pacific Islander Books published by PNW Presses
by: Sam Rivas, Contributor & Guest Author
De-canon celebrates Asian American Pacific Islander writers, zooming in on Pacific Northwest published poetry. These collections share elements of identity—history, grief, and family.
Portuguese by Brandon Shimoda @brandon_shimoda (Octopus Books& Tin House Books) @octopusbookspoetry
“Every child I see I say to myself / is that how my child will look? I look/ For parents to extrapolate against, see only/ Myself on the opposite shore” (8, The Grave on the Wall)
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Proof of Stake an Elegy by Charles Valle @checking4charles (Fonograf) @fonografeditions
“I want to invent a new plasticity of language, / Of movement, of motions, of grief / And strike these words to widen the aperture / To blur the background, all that baggage/ In buttery bokeh, unrecognizable/Dark, more dark “ (59)
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Picasso’s Tears Poems 1978-2013 by Wong May (Octopus Books) @octopusbookspoetry
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Poem titled, “DARK TIMES: LU HSÜN (1881-1936)” by Wong May, page 29 (Wave Books)
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A Thousand Times you Lose your Treasure by Hoa Nguyen @hn2626 (Wave books)
Poem titled, “Tones in Vietnamese Language”
Photo: Hoa Nguyen’s mother was part of an all women motorcycle stunt group from Vinh Long. This is a photo of one of the women in the group.
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Photo collage in Hardly War by Don Mee Choi, “Hardly Opera” pg 54-55 (Wave Books)
Photo of drawing and poem in DMZ Colony by Don Mee Choi, “Orphan Nine” pg 71
Motherhood, Mothering, and Mothers
by: Sam Rivas, Contributor & Guest Author
De-canon contemplates the complexities of things we might think about on Mother’s Day, highlighting a few books by women writers of color on motherhood, mothering, mothers, and inheritance. Below are my favorite glimpses of The Breaks by Julietta Singh, Guidebook to Relative Strangers: Journeys into Race, Motherhood, and History by Camille T. Dungy, and Bring Down the Little Birds by Carmen Giménez Smith.
Being a daughter to a mother who is 843 miles away, has reminded me of my newborn self—calling every hour and crying to be fed words of reassurance. I am pregnant for the first time and each of these books feels like a Bible designed to understand mothers. They are gems of wisdom holding space in a world that typically focuses on the ugly of motherhood.
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"Mothering at the end of the world is an infinite toggle between wanting to make you feel safe and needing you to know that the earth and its inhabitants are facing a catastrophic crisis."— The Breaks, Julietta Singh
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"…[T]he size of a mother’s brain changes during pregnancy and the early stages of motherhood… Because of my changing brain, I understand things differently… I am, I believe now, more prepared to be accepting of the humanity in all of us. The biggest difference between the smiting God of the Old Testament and the forgiving God of the New, I’d argue, is that the New Testament God went and had a baby." —- Guidebook to Relative Strangers: Journeys into Race, Motherhood, and History, Camille T. Dungy
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“Mother is heavy matter, lead. Weighed down with my son in my arms, groceries, a diaper bag, the baby inside me. I am bound to this earth by downward momentum.” —Bring Down the Little Birds, Carmen Giménez Smith