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May is Asian Heritage Month and is a time to celebrate the arts and cultures of Asia.  Poetic forms arise out of a cultural group’s language and can sometimes work well in another language like English with some modification and changes.  Poetic forms can also be used as a means of expression of one’s cultural identity or sensibility.  Over the weekend at a conference I attended, I had a chance to listen to poet Sheniz Janmohamed talk about the ghazal, a poetic form originating in Arabic, and later made famous by Persian poets Rumi and Hafiz.  For Janmohamed, learning about the ghazal form and its traditions lead eventually to her own ghazal writing in English. The ghazal was a way to connect her with her South Asian heritage and to deepen her knowledge and awareness of the rich potentials of the form as it could be explored in English.  The result of her work is her book Bleeding Light, TSAR publications, 2010.  Of course, you don’t have to be South Asian to write a ghazal; it is a form like any other and artists are always interested in experimenting with forms!   However, because I am myself a poet of Asian background, I appreciate those artists who plumb the depths of their cultural traditions and find new hybridized ways of expressing themselves through traditional forms, particularly non-western ones.

An example of a poet playing with traditional Japanese forms — haiku and senryu — is Richard Stevenson, who has compiled a book of poems called Casting Out Nines: Haiku and Senryu for Teens (Ekstasis Editions, 2011.)  This is a collection of flip, irreverent high-school haiku — which reminded me of a long ago incident in my high school days when an English teacher allowed students to submit creative writing for their papers and was stymied by my friend who submitted a haiku (or maybe it was two!) for his paper.  Leave it to a teenager to exploit a literary form to his own ends!

Anyway, that aside, Poetry Friday this week is hosted by Katja at Write. Sketch. Repeat.

The winners of the 2011 Growing Up Asian in America art and essay contest have been announced!

The largest program in the USA to celebrate Asian heritage, Growing Up Asian in America is a signature program of the Asian Pacific Fund and provides a unique forum for youth in grade K to 12 to celebrate being both Asian and American and to express this through creative writing and art. The program is also an important community re source, helping people better understand the experiences of young Asian Americans and learn more about life in a place as diverse as the San Francisco Bay Area.

Each year more than 1,000 Bay Area students compete for prizes totaling $27,000. A new theme is selected each year and for 2011 is “Lost and Found”. Organizers note:

Our hunch was that children and youth of all ages experience loss and discovery throughout their young lives and might not find opportunities to reflect on those changes.

Local Bay Area libraries are hosting exhibits that display the winning entries and honorable mentions of the Bay Area students from now until February, 2012. There you can see Hyejin Ahn’s winning art, “Never Be Lost Again,” a film strip image of war and goodbyes.  Grace Wang’s essay that suggests to her good friend who is adopted that maybe her [birth] mother might have accidentally lost her.  How Payal Ahuja felt lost when she first came to America at age eight; she missed her family and friends in India. Then she found that her library in Mountain View was “a constant source of joy.” Through our 2011 program we learn that loss and discovery are an important part of our experience, especially for those who have traveled thousands of miles to become American.

The exhibit schedule can be found here and is a must see for adults and children! You will be amazed at the insight, creativity, wisdom and talent of these students! One of my favorite winning entries in the art category is pictured above. The image is by Aniketh Umesh, winner in the K-5 art category, and is titled “Lost Out: On Good Times With Grandpa In India; Found: Land Of Opportunity In The United States”.

I feel bit of a Johnny-Come-Lately introducing this wonderful young adult graphic novel called American Born Chinese by Gene Yang.   PaperTigers has already done a lot with this ground-breaking Asian American graphic novel; for example, you can see Yang’s work featured in the PT gallery.  But the book really only came to my attention through this blog called An Introduction to Comics by Paul Moffett.

When my son was younger, he sometimes requested a comic book for me to read to him at bedtime.   He developed an appetite for the form quite early.  Now, he reads to himself at night and he prefers graphic novels or comics.  I picked up American Born Chinese, more or less, hoping that he would read it on my recommendation.  But then, I got hooked!  And then my husband got hooked, too.   What I found compelling about Yang’s novel was its incorporation and intertwining of the Judeo-Christian story with the mythical one of the Monkey King.  While the Monkey King struggles with his identity as a monkey, so too, does the boy Jin Wang struggle with his identity as Chinese American.  Although at first these stories seem unconnected, they join up at the end in an unusually satisfying way.  Monkey King’s advice to Jin Wang?  — “You know, Jin, I would have saved myself from five hundred years’ imprisonment beneath a mountain of rock had I only realized how good it is to be a monkey.”

May is Asian Heritage Month or Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, and if there’s ONE book you might consider reading for it, I would recommend American Born Chinese.  It’s destined to become an Asian American classic.  Soon after my husband and I were finished with the book, I saw my son casually pick it up, peruse its pages, and carry it off to his bedroom for his own night-time reading.

(Click on event name for more information)

Get Caught Reading Month~ USA

National Share-a-Story Month~ United Kingdom

Asian-Pacific American Heritage Month~ USA

Asian Heritage Month~ Canada

BOOKtopia Children’s Literature Festival~ ongoing until May 7, West Vancouver, BC, Canada

Buenos Aires Book Fair~ ongoing until May 10, Buenos Aires, Argentina

Once Upon a Time . . . Children’s Book Illustrators, Then and Now~ ongoing until May 27, Oakland, CA, USA

Mitali Perkins’ 2010 Fire Escape Short Fiction and Poetry Contest~ entries accepted until Jun 1, USA and Canada

Into the Wood: Antonio Frasconi’s Art for Children~ ongoing until Jun 13, Ameherst, MA, USA

Skipping Stones Magazine’s Youth Honor Award Program – Multicultural Awareness and Nature Appreciation~ entries accepted until Jun 25

The National Center for Children’s Illustrated Literature Exhibit: Why Grow Up? Etienne Delessert~ ongoing until Jun 26, Abilene, TX, USA

Monsters and Miracles: A Journey through Jewish Picture Books~ ongoing until  Aug 1, Los Angeles, CA, USA

Everyday Adventures Growing Up: Art from Picture Books~ ongoing until Nov 28, Chicago, IL, USA

BOOKFEST – The Vancouver Island Children’s Book Festival~ May 1, Nanaimo, BC, Canada

“Second to the Right, and Straight on Till Morning:” Navigating the Narrative Realm(s) of Children’s Texts~ May 1, Vancouver, BC, Canada

Old Passions – New Technologies: Children’s and Young Adult Literature
in a Web 2.0 World~ May 1, Los Angeles, CA, USA

Expo 2010~ May 1 – Oct 31, Shanghai, China

SCBWI Presents: Shaping a Picture Book/Shaping Character~ May 6, Paris, France

Asian Festival of Children’s Content~ May 6 – 9, Singapore

Bermuda International Literary Festival~ May 6 – 9, Hamilton
Bermuda

SCBWI Hawaii Illustrators’ Exhibit: The Art of Picture Books~ May 6 – Jun 16, Honolulu, HI, USA

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