My NEA Poems

The poems that were part of my NEA Fellowship in Literature Application this year were a number of well-known pieces of mine, as well as some lesser known examples of my writing:

Burning Eden One Branch At A Time appears in my first book, On the Other Side of the Eye and elsewhere, and it was the opening poem in my sample set. For me, this is one that's always raised a particular number of controversies as a visual poem and as an Asian American poem among many other reasons. 

Illumination of Toxins is a bilingual poem that's also been one discussed in some circles but not widely published in its current form, although it has circulated informally among many of my readers and students.

Japonisme, Laoisme was included. This version is significantly different from the one originally featured in the Asian Pacific American Journal several years ago but could be considered in many ways one of my key ars poetica poems next to Anthology.

The Tuk-Tuk Diaries: Part I was one I included that debuted in my chapbook, The Tuk-Tuk Diaries: My Dinner with Cluster Bombs. It was another selection that was easy to rationalize for consideration. In fact, several poems from this collection were included for my NEA application. The others were Our Dinner With Cluster Bombs and Khop Jai For Nothing, Farangs.  Moon Crossing Bone and E Pluribus Unum closed out my sample, and these have been widely available in several texts of mine.

In all, I used 8 poems to meet my portfolio requirements and I'm honored the judges for this year saw the quality of my writing and awarded me a Fellowship in Literature for this. I'll post the full work sample set up later this season.