Virtual Book Launch for "We the Gathered Heat: Asian American and Pacific Islander Poetry, Performance, and Spoken Word"

We the Gathered Heat features some of the brightest voices in contemporary poetry who challenge, expand, and illuminate the meaning of the label “Asian American and Pacific Islander” (AAPI) in today’s world. Exploring the range of experiences AAPI people endure in a world shaped by colonization and white supremacy, the poems in this collection confront American militarism, reimagine lineage, celebrate queer/trans life, and reclaim indigeneity, refugeehood, and more. Drawn from a range of schools and movements, We the Gathered Heat highlights the vitality of oral traditions in contemporary AAPI literature. Intergenerational and fiercely loving, this path breaking anthology honors our literary ancestors and makes space for AAPI literary futures.

Bao Phi (he/him/his) has been a performance poet since 1991. A two-time Minnesota Grand Slam champion and a National Poetry Slam finalist, Bao Phi has appeared on HBO Presents Russell Simmons Def Poetry. He has two collections of poems, both published by Coffee House Press, Sông I Sing and Thousand Star Hotel, the latter of which was nominated for the Minnesota Book Award, named by NPR as one of the best books of 2017, and was chosen as 2017’s best poetry book of the year by San Francisco State’s Poetry Center.

Terisa Siagatonu is an award-winning poet, teaching artist, mental health educator, and community leader born and rooted in the Bay Area. Her presence in the poetry world as a queer Samoan woman and activist has granted her opportunities to perform and speak in places ranging from the White House (during the Obama administration) to the UN Conference on Climate Change in Paris, France. A Kundiman Fellow and 2019 Yerba Buena Center for the Arts 100 List Honoree, her work has been published in Poetry Magazine and has been featured on Button Poetry, CNN, NBCNews, NPR, Huffington Post, KQED, Everyday Feminism, The Guardian, BuzzFeed, and Upworthy.

 

Carol Ann Carl is a Native Pohnpeian poet. In 2023, she was the Poetry and the Senses fellow at the University of California–Berkeley’s Arts Research Center. She lives in Honolulu.

George Abraham is a Palestinian-American poet and memoirist who was born on unceded Timucuan lands (Jacksonville, FL). They are the author of Birthright (2020), which won the Arab American Book Award. They are currently executive editor of Mizna and teach at Amherst College.

David Mura’s most recent books are The Stories Whiteness Tells Itself: Racial Myths and Our American Narratives and A Stranger’s Journey: Race, Identity & Narrative Craft in Writing. His poetry books are The Last Incantations, Angels for the Burning, The Colors of Desire, and After We Lost Our Way.

Saba Keramati is the author of Self-Mythology, selected by Patricia Smith for the Miller Williams Poetry Series (University of Arkansas Press, 2024). She is a Discovery Poetry Prize winner. For more, please visit her website.

Sham-e-Ali Nayeem is an interdisciplinary artist, poet, sound producer, and recovering social justice lawyer with Hyderabadi Muslim roots. She is the author of the poetry collection, City of Pearls (Upset Press, 2019) and has released two musical albums, City of Pearls (2019) and Moti Ka Sheher (2023), featuring self-composed musical interpretations from her book. Sham-e-Ali is the recipient of the 2022 Leeway Transformation Award, the 2016 Loft Literary Center Spoken Word Immersion Fellowship, and the 1997 echoing green fellowship. Follow Sham @sham_e_ali_nayeem.