ABOUT THE EVENT
ILLUMINATE is a virtual poetry reading and open mic in response to the rise in Anti-Asian violence and hate crimes, which have increased by 1900% since the start of the pandemic. Open mic will center Asian, Asian American, and BIPOC poets standing in solidarity with the Asian and Asian American community during this time.
ILLUMINATE is co-curated by Greer Nakadegawa-Lee and Lauren Ito. This programming is presented as part of the Political Inheritance Exhibition co-sponsored by the Asian American Women Artists Association, and the Oakland Asian Cultural Center.
FEATURED READERS
Yume Kim
Maya Looney
Jenny Qi
Greer Nakadegawa-Lee
Lauren Ito
*Prior to the event, attendees will receive the Zoom link information via email. Please note that once the Webinar has reached capacity, you will still be able to view the event through our YouTube Stream.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Yume Kim
Yume Kim is an alumni of San Francisco State University, with an MA in English and an MFA in Creative Writing. She is a Kundiman fellow recipient, as well as the runner-up for the Michael Rubin Book Award in 2013. Her debut publication, Reserve the Right, is now available through Nomadic Press.
Website: www.yumekim-poet.com
Maya Looney
Maya is a junior at Skyline Highschool and takes poetry classes in the basement of Temescal Library. She’s read poems for a couple years at the Watershed Environmental Poetry Festival, which when it's not on zoom takes place near a bookstore where she spends too much money on art books.
Instagram: @meyerlemonsketches
Jenny Qi
Jenny Qi is the author of the debut poetry collection Focal Point, selected by Dustin Pearson as the winner of the 2020 Steel Toe Books Poetry Award. Her essays and poems have been published widely in newspapers and literary journals, including The New York Times, The Atlantic, Tin House, Rattle, ZYZZYVA, and the San Francisco Chronicle, and she has received fellowships from Tin House, Omnidawn, Kearny Street Workshop, and the San Francisco Writers Grotto. At the end of graduate school, she co-founded and produced the science storytelling podcast Bone Lab Radio, where she wrote and talked a lot about death. Born in Pennsylvania to Chinese immigrants, she grew up mostly in Las Vegas and Nashville and now resides in San Francisco, where she completed her Ph.D. in Cancer Biology and currently works in oncology consulting. She is working on more essays and poems and translating her late mother’s memoirs of the Chinese Cultural Revolution and immigration to the U.S.
Website: jqiwriter.com
Greer Nakadegawa-Lee
Greer Nakadegawa-Lee is 16 years old and a junior at Oakland Technical High School. She has written a poem every day for over two years now, and she is the 2020 Oakland Youth Poet Laureate. Her first chapbook , "A Heart Full of Hallways" is out now with Nomadic Press.
Lauren Ito
Lauren Ito is a Gosei (fifth generation person of Japanese ancestry) poet, community craftswoman, and organizer committed to advancing equity through art and design. As an artist and organizer Lauren delves into the tensions inherited within diasporic experiences, including explorations of American concentration camps, political agency, and home. Lauren’s work has been featured by The San Francisco Public Library, The Seattle Times, Japanese American National Museum, and various performance venues.
Instagram: @Lauren.Ito