>> From the Library of Congress in Washington, DC. >> Robert Casper: Hello, everybody. Thanks for coming out on a lovely fall night here in Washington, DC and welcome to the Library of Congress. My name is Rob Casper. I'm the head of Poetry and Literature Center here. And I'm thrilled and delighted to kick off another of our Asian-American Literature Today Series events, the first event of the fall with this series. I want to thank our presenting partners, the Asian-American Literary Review, the Asian-American Studies Program at the University of Maryland, and the Smithsonian Asian-Pacific Center as well as poets and writers. And I want to thank Lawrence-Minh Bui Davis who's at the center of all those organizations for his hard work to keep this series going. Before we begin, let me just ask you to turn off your cellphones and any other electronic devices that you might have that will interfere with the event. I also want to let you know that this event is being recorded for future webcast and if you choose to participate in the Q and A session, you give us permission for future use of the recording. And also, let me tell you a little bit about the Poetry and Literature Center here at the Library of Congress. We are home to the Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry. Our 21st Poet Laureate is Juan Felipe Herrera and you can read all about him online. In addition to taking care of our Poet Laureate, we host three to four public programs like this throughout the year. We have information on the poetry and literature center outside in the foyer on the table. If you want to find out more about the programs like this, you can check that out. You can sign up for our RSS feed. You can also go to our website, www.loc.gov/poetry. So you've seen the program, the order of events. I'm going to introduce -- to introduce her but before I do that, let me just give a special shout out to Kundiman's new Executive Director, Rita Banerjee, who's in the very front row. Let's give her a warm welcome. [ Applause ] And I'm happy to introduce my dear friend, the poet and Kundiman Advisory Board Co-Chair, Jennifer Chang, to get up and tell you a little bit more about tonight's featured readers as well as moderate the discussion afterwards. Thank you. [ Applause ] >> Jennifer Chang: Hi, thank you so much for coming. In preparation for today's reading, I asked the poets Aimee Nezhukumatathil and Janine Joseph to tell me about the first time they met each other. Neither could remember a first or second time and yet both claim they didn't remember ever not knowing the other. Nezhukumatathil wrote, "I feel I've known Janine since the formation of Kundiman. Admittedly, my research yielded no empirical evidence. But I think it illustrates how writing friendships and writing communities, the poems, stories and conversations that animate in arts culture can be atmospheric, a kind of weather system that crosses boundaries of time and place to share experience that we feel immediately perhaps intuitively in our bones before recognizing as a fact like temperature." The fact is that Kundiman has cultivated and nurtured a community of Asian-American writers since its first retreat in 2004. And it continues to connect Asian-American writers across generations and aesthetics through organized readings like this one, publication opportunities and formal and informal mentoring relationships. You can find out more about the specific accomplishments of our fellows, faculty and staff at the website www.kundiman.org. Today is all about Aimee Nezhukumatathil, a two-time faculty member of the [inaudible] and Janine Joseph, a fellow and a winner of the 2014 Kundiman Poetry Prize. If they themselves cannot remember a first meeting, their poems suggest an ongoing conversation, that dynamically and persistently challenges our conventional notions of everyday life. In poems of childhood memory, town life, motherhood and the deceptively ordinary, Nezhukumatathil uncovers the animal and mythological, shining a light on the strangeness of tilapia, high school in Ohio. Joseph's personal lyrics are fraught with the political as she rewrites the American dream as complicated by her family's status as undocumented immigrants. Hers is a poetics that attends to these central fragmentation of any narrative, formerly rigorous yet riddled always with doubt of self and world. These two poets remind us that writing the songs of one's self is neither a [inaudible] nor lonely exercise and that to sing it all is to reach out to other people, other cultures, and histories, and other possibilities of thought and being. Aimee Nezhukumatathil is the poetry editor of Orion, America's premier environmental magazine and the 2016-2017 Grisham Writer in Residence at the University of Mississippi's MFA Program in Creative Writing in Oxford, Mississippi. She is the author of three books of poems, Lucky Fish , At the Drive-In Volcano , and Miracle Fruit all from Tupelo Press. And her book of illustrated nature essays, World of Wonder is forthcoming from Milkweed Editions. Janine Joseph's first book is Driving Without a License and it won the 2014 Kundiman Poetry Prize and was published just this spring from Alice James Books. She also writes for opera and her libretti for the Houston Grand Opera include What Wings They Were, The Case of Emeline , On This Muddy Water, Voices from the Houston Ship Channel and From My Mother's Mother . She's an Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at Oklahoma State University in Stillwater, Oklahoma. Please join me in giving a very warm welcome to tonight's poets. [ Applause ] >> Janine Joseph: Leaving the nonprofit immigration lawyer's office, 2001. When the car drifted from the Santa Ana winds, I switched off the radio and pointed at the street poles swaying over the two-way stretch like palms. All night, the wind brushed dry the hills with fire and I kept driving. His hands steady out the window taking snapshots of the red, whipping rings. I power rolled the windows down to let the smoked grass scent seep into the upholstery, circulate coyote and birdsong through the air vents. "Can you smell the burning mustard plants, the foxtail and fox glove weeds on my skin?" I asked. Hands open, the wheel orbiting under my palms. Watch when I let go. I demonstrated, knuckles loosening around the leather, the car coasting left with pollen and butterfly debris. "We'd be pitched into the brush glare," I warned. If I let go completely, we'd grate the chain-linked fence and itch the ashen shrubs. I shuddered slow at tumbleweeds storming the undercarriages, storming the road. B said, "Right, like you'd let go." Thank you, everyone for coming out tonight to see Aimee and I read. Aimee is one of my literary heroes so this is a really surreal experience. Thank you to Rob and Anya, and Rita and Kundiman, and Jen and Lawrence for making this entire reading and this collaboration possible. As Jen mentioned, I'm going to be reading largely from my book which just came out this past May and the book follows an immigrant from the Philippines who is living in the U.S. without proper legal documentation. And the book is very much informed by my own experience having lived undocumented in the U.S. for 15 years. I immigrated my family when I was eight years old in 1991 and did not get my green card until my first year of graduate school at NYU. This next poem has so many parts. There's an epigraph which no longer appears in the book. There are parts -- there are sections and then there's language that is lifted from the U.S. CIS N-400 form for naturalization as well as language that's taken from a number of newspaper articles about undocumented immigrants, undocumented immigration. It's called Between Chou and the Butterfly . And again, I'll begin with the epigraph. And for each section, I'll just pause. He does not know whether he is Chou who dreams he's a butterfly or a butterfly who dreams he is Chou. Between Chou and the butterfly, there was necessarily a dividing. Just this is what is meant by the transformation of things -- Zhuangzi. Between Chou and the butterfly. On my way to America, I am in an airplane, on a boat. When my life is a story, I am a good swimmer, an American dream, a guest worker, freeloader, fence hopper, uninsured brother carried from hospital to hospital, a crushing case load, a wrenching anecdote, a deserving young people and anchor. Before anyone finds me, I am heartwood exposed by lightning, by the young Republicans, by newscasters playing find illegal immigrant, find the unwed single, the crier, the spouse battered by U.S. citizen spouse. Find the widower, the one you will petition to marry, the headless bodies in the Arizona desert. I hear they raid when you're naked in bed, packed like a sardine, pillows tucked around you. I hear like dogs, like alien relatives while you cry and hug, they swarm. They ax your back door. The trunks of trees, they ax the wild terrain, the scrub, the rapid succession of sounds I make when I walk alone and sweaty and hardly myself in the dark where a man migrating suffering great pain is found hanging from a tree later charred. According to eyewitnesses, I am the same crazy, lost on my way to dead man's tree, to the hallowed tree of virgin in the valley of the lost ones, in the wilderness stripped of my underwear for the money stitched into the seams, for mental status evaluation. A physical examination to include complete disrobing. Worse than genital herpes, the situation with these illegals into the microphone, says the interviewee. "I, the undersigned, am not a communist and not likely to become a public charge. I understand I do not traffic other humans, recruit child soldiers. I do not seek to practice polygamy, engage in espionage in ordered genocide in items A through L. I do not have to reimburse the school I do solemnly swear if I am not who I say I am. I may subject me to permanent exclusion." Landscape with American dream -- putting down the beets you got to thinking my life had dead-ended and we're serious and I agreed but first, "I need capers and whatever is past the pimientos," I said and scanned the list. I needed the lemon glaze, the stuff I craved on the ethnic lane and still I had to sing of how I walked a thousand hot miles because my mom was Catholic and pressed the white blouse, the blue jumper and we were good people and good people lent their good cars to those in more need. It was like the distance from here to the Philippines, I nodded. I MapQuested it once. And they -- my brothers, were all eyes on their Gameboys, dodging potholes, snake holes and anthills from Saint Francis to who knows where we lived. We walked so much my dad every night kneaded the stiff backs of our shoes so they wouldn't scallop our heels when we walked lesson after lesson without turning an ankle. What wrecks we were. What expert wrecks burning down those sun sponged streets. Now look high muscle my stack of avocadoes and hearts. See how I coast and carved and fault my rootless cart. See how I course my arm to say go and go. Do you wait for me? Do you circle the lots quiet loop while I lift into a run like a dog dead and slipped from her lease? Do you brake? Do you idle? Do you worry your arm from an aisle like a table sauce saying come, come? I've a line to beat and know double coupons so do you strike up your shoes? Do you bare hand your grief and pump it slack, lap after lap after me? Come, bread roadster, come American galloper, come bark with this breath out with me. I have one final poem. I had a first career when I was three years old. I was the face of a Kraft Cheddar Cheese in the Philippines. And this title takes the -- takes its name from part of a jingle from a Kraft Cheddar Cheese commercial from 1986. More milk, more milk makes it better. In 1986, when I was three-and-a-half years old, I won an award for sitting cute and biting into a slice of Kraft Cheddar Cheese. Then how my star blew up. I was on the cover of calendars in the Sunday section, stomping the runway, turning down small parts in movies. At seven, I promised my mom I would never be chubby again. No way. I swirled a dress in the dressing room and was the daughter my brothers hated. Nothing could stop me, not even America with its rich marshmallow cereals. But the milk, oh God, the grade A vitamin D milk! No one knew what it was doing to me. Little Miss Piggy drinking eight ounces by the kidney bean pool. All my life, it had been coconut juice, mango juice, and water. Little Miss Piggy mending her polka dot suit. It had been goat's milk and goat's milk. Little Miss Piggy clasping her knees to her chest and winning the cannonball contest. I was small, indomitable and could hide behind the couch with a stein. It was the drink of all the saints. It was worth all my work in the world [laughter]. Thank you. [ Applause ] >> Aimee Nezhukumatathil: Hello, everybody. Thank you so much for being out here -- the middle of the work week. I'm going to play just a little snippet of something for you. So I'm a child of the '80s, to carry on the '80s theme here, Janine. And there was a drama that was Emmy nominated. High schoolers wanted to go around and visit them. They don't believe that this happened or that it was possible. But there was a drama called "The Incredible Hulk" and that was full of my childhood crush, Bill Bixby there [laughter]. So I know most high school -- this was not the stereotypical like '80s crush at the time, Michael Jackson, Menudo, Ricky Schroeder and all that stuff. But there was a song -- this was the theme song of the show. And they played it at the end of every said episode so this is the Incredible Hulk. I don't want you to be thinking of not the Avengers nonsense. This is -- [ Music ] Do you guys know this show? Okay. [ Music ] I swear [laughter]. If you don't know what I'm talking about, I think it's on FX every once in a while. You have to see this. There was no special effects. It was Bill Bixby was the scientist and then it would bad editing and then Lou Ferrigno played the Hulk. So this is what I learned from the Incredible Hulk. When it comes to clothes, make an allowance for the unexpected. Be sure to spare in the trunk of your station wagon with wood paneling is not in need of repair. A simple jean jacket says, "Hey, if you aren't trying to smuggle rare Incan coins to this peaceful little town and kidnap the local orphan, I can be one heck of a mellow kind of guy." But no matter how angry a man gets, I learned that a smile and a soft stroke on his bicep can work wonders. I learned that male chests also have nipples warm and established and I learned that green does not always mean envy. It's the meadows full of clover and chicory that the Hulk seeks for rest, a return to normal. And sometimes, sometimes a woman gets to go with him [laughter]. Her tiny hands correcting his crumpled hair, the cuts in his hand. I watch it and know that green is the space between water and sun. It's the cover for a quiet man, each of his ribs shuttling drops of liquid light. I moved around a lot when I was little. Various places all over kind of rural America. My mother was a psychiatrist and we always lived in these rural kind of areas that had state hospitals. But I never felt lonesome because my father -- and my parents were always working, working, working. But they always made sure that we knew every constellation in the sky. From as long as I can remember, we knew what the names of rocks, we knew the names of plants and fruit. So that -- you know, even if I didn't make friends right away, at least then you could look up and be kind of grounded and stuff. And this is called "Mosquitoes." When my father wanted to point out galaxies or Andromeda or the Seven Sisters, I would complain of the [inaudible] of mosquitoes and the yawning moon quiet in that slow summer air. All I wanted was to go inside into our cooled house and watch TV or paint my nails. What does a 15-year-old girl know of patience? What did I know of the steady turn of whole moon valleys cresting into focus? Standing there in our driveway with him, I smacked my legs, my arms and my face while I waited for him to find whatever pinhole of light he wanted me to see. At night, when I washed my face, I'd find bursts of blood and dried bodies slapped into my skin. Complained at breakfast how I'd never do this again, Dad. I have more homework now, Dad. I can't go to school with bites all over my face anymore, Dad. And now, now I hardly ever say no. He has plans. He has plans to go star gazing with his grandsons and for once, I do not protest. He has plans. I know one day he won't ask me. He won't be there to show me how the rings of Saturn glow in gold. Jump, if you catch it on the right night. I know one day I will look up into the night sky, searching, searching. I know the mosquitoes will still have their way with me but I know my father one day won't be there to hear me complain. I -- hang on one second. My father is from South India and I have not been northern India up where the Taj Mahal is and I'm planning a big kind of family trip out there. And kind of to my chagrin, my surprise -- there are reviews of basically all the wonders of the world now. Like there's Yelp reviews of these places. I always say like the cesspool of humanity is in the -- writ like the one-star reviews of places. This is, and I started about a little mini-series of poems like one-star reviews of the Great Wall of China. This is one-star reviews of the Taj Mahal. This is all -- I found a poem, all I did was break the lines. Too bad, it's manmade [laughter]. As a standalone attraction, I guess it's passable but compared to the McDonald's at Celebration Mall, it's just meh. Not for Indians. Very, very tacky. There is no coat room at the South Gate. The garden is basic. Everything is basic [laughter]. We were ripped off by asking local shopkeepers to hold our bags for us and you will be swarmed. Swarmed by street vendors, and swarmed by children, and swarmed by camels, and parking lot goons, and children, and cheat cameramen, and stalker tourist guides, and camel children, and footwear thieves. So I just want you to know mind your belongings. I guess it's just an old love story. But is it love or hate [laughter]? Can you believe I was told to get out with my selfie stick? Don't even think about seeing it under a full moon. And I want you to know this tomb has no reds [laughter]. One final one and this is the first poem in my new manuscript, "Oceanic" and this is called "The Invitation." Come in, come in. The water is fine. You can't get lost here. Even if you want to hide behind the clutch of spiny oysters, I promise I will find you. If you ever leave me at night by boat, you will see the arrangement of red-gold sun stars in a sea of milk. And though it's tempting to visit them, stay. I've been trained to gaze up all my life no matter the rumble on Earth but I learned it's okay to glance down into the sea. So many lessons bubble up if you know where to look. Clouds of plankton churning in open whale mouths might send you east and chewy urchins might send you west. Squid know how to be rich when you have ten empty arms. And can you believe there are humans who don't value the feel of a good bite, an embrace at least once a day? Underneath you, narwhals spin upside down while their singular teeth needles you like a compass pointed towards home. If you dive deep enough, where imperial volutes and hatchet fish swim, you will find all the colors humans have not yet named and wide caves of black coral and clamshell. A giant squid finally let itself be captured in a photograph and a paper nautilus ripple flashes its scarlet and two kinds of violet when it silvers you near. Who knows what will happen next? And if you want to look up, I hope you see the dark sky as oceanic, boundless, limitless like all the shades of blue in a glacier. Listen to how this planet spins with so much of fin, wing, and fur. Thank you. [ Applause ] >> Oh, you have [inaudible]. >> Aimee Nezhukumatathil: Where do you want to sit? >> Jennifer Chang: I was going to sit here. >> Janine Joseph: I feel like we've been musical chairs today -- >> Jennifer Chang: I know [laughter]. >> Aimee Nezhukumatathil: I know, I know. >> Jennifer Chang: Thank you for that beautiful reading. [Inaudible] hear me? I have some questions for you. And I wrote them out too because [inaudible]. I wrote them out because I can't do anything adlib. >> Janine Joseph: Okay, great. >> Jennifer Chang: Okay, so I was trying to figure out how you guys met each other and you just -- you had no answer. But one of the recurring possibilities was that you'd met -- I could be wrong -- at the retreat at a workshop and then Janine pointed out that you'd never worked out. You'd never made it to the classrooms. I was thinking about teaching and pedagogy and since you're both writers who write -- writers who teach creative writing, I was very curious about how you teach, how your experience in workshops have shaped you as a writer, how your writing informs your workshop? And I'm asking this, pardon me, from a two to one perspective thinking about the [inaudible] years ago where he basically made plain to everyone what [inaudible] have always known that the creative writing workshop has been very exclusionary to discourses of race, and identity, and other kind of normative otherness and things like that. [Inaudible] of otherness [inaudible]. So my question -- sorry to be so long winded -- is about identity in crafts and whether identity could be integral to crafts and how your experiences in workshop have helped you figure these things out as writers but also as teachers of creative writing? >> Aimee Nezhukumatathil: I'll start -- it's a great -- it's a fantastic question. And there's lots there to attack. So I'll just [inaudible] the [inaudible]. Yeah, this is funny. I'm going to just like I'm trying just a little bit of it. I will tell you -- so I went to Ohio State for my grad program and it was a pretty lonesome time in the classroom. I was not lonesome outside of the classroom. Go Bucks! But sorry -- it's so obnoxious. We're number two in the country in college football and I have to always drop that every time. So but I will say there was a poem, I remember it was -- it's very kind of formative. I've never forgotten it. I was writing about a visit to my grandmother in South India and it's this beautiful place in Kerala. I don't know if you -- if anybody's been there. It's so gorgeous they call it the Emerald Coast. I remember one person my workshop was like, "Eh, I don't buy this is India. I mean, where's the poor people? Where's the pollution?" And, you know, that kind of thing. And I was just, you know, you have to be poker faced when people are talking about your poems. But it just kind of broke my heart in many different ways that A, someone -- I had to kind of you know, if they said, "Oh, your line break is raw, I could take that," you know. But if like it was just because of the kind of insularity of not being able to imagine that a country could be beautiful, you know, that kind of thing. So that was -- and nobody had really kind of jumped in once that person started then the whole thing was like, Yeah, more pollution. Add some noise. Add some -- I mean, to the point we were like heaven forbid, I write about beauty and in that in a place. And there's definitely like scary sketchy places in DC but there's also beautiful places in DC as well. So I don't know if that necessarily answers your question but I know that I was thinking back then if I ever get to a situation where I'm leading a workshop, none of that is going to be tolerated in my workshops. And it never has been. And more than that, I just -- you know, I think we were always kind of trained -- write what you know, write what you know. So if people in the workshop are only writing what they know, it is hard to kind of make commentary on things that they don't know. You know, that kind of thing. Lucille Clifton has this great quote. She says, "I don't write out of what I know. I write out of what I wonder." So I'd like that as almost a teaching mantra too. Like what else -- or what are the possibilities rather than what is this poem trying to be through my limitations? You know, that kind of thing. So it's kind of a vague answer but I don't know if you want to tackle? >> Janine Joseph: Sure, I feel like I had an answer that I was thinking of and then I got so carried away with her story and then I was trying to think if the poem that you were talking about was "Wrap?" >> Aimee Nezhukumatathil: Actually, it was [laughter]. >> Janine Joseph: That's great. >> Aimee Nezhukumatathil: It's amazing you know like those were from my very, very first book which was my thesis actually. >> Janine Joseph: Yeah, so -- that's a poem that I teach to my students all the time. It's actually a poem that I've used for Job Talk. >> Aimee Nezhukumatathil: Oh no [laughter]. >> Janine Joseph: So thanks for giving me a job [laughter]. >> Aimee Nezhukumatathil: I'll accept that. >> Janine Joseph: But I really hear you with this experience of just, you know, feeling kind of lonely. For me, my workshop experience, I think, was just incredibly different because when I was in -- when I was doing my undergraduate studies, [inaudible] during my MFA. I was still dealing or at least part way through my MFA with the fact that I was undocumented and I had not come out and it was something that I was not able to articulate in the space of the workshop. And so I -- ever poem that I brought in, people would just kind of try to guess as to what was going on in the poem. And usually that would mean that I would have to speak to my professors during my office hours, and kind of explain to them in confidence what it was that I was trying to do. Because I knew that whatever was going to happen in the workshop, you know, they can guide me in terms of line breaks. They can say this image is not working. But you know, I also still had feedback that was like, "Where are the cacti? Where is the border wall?" And I would -- I had come from the Philippines. I flew right into LAX. So my experience was not the experience of undocumented immigrants that people had imagined in the workshop. And so for me, the workshop was incredibly difficult. But I learned line breaks and I learned how to craft image and metaphor and I would say that maybe as a teacher, I try to be really aware of the world that is out -- living outside of the poem because for me it's true because the workshop was the lonely place. I found that some of the joy that I was able to bring into my life when I was an undergraduate and when I was working on my MFA and probably even through the PhD was through a lot -- a number of community organizations. So for example, when I was in Houston working on my PhD, I was working with writers in the schools that I got to work with like second and third graders. And for them, you know, like rainbows popping out of their hearts is the most brilliant thing in the world. And I actually even bring in those poems written by my second and third graders into the graduate level workshop as a way of reminding, I think, my students of the joy that is existing outside the workshop. And just to kind of keep pushing them to draw from the world that is around them so that we just don't get stuck in the workshop and the workshop mode and the thinking that goes on in the workshop. Which also includes you know, making sure that I actively am teaching a lot of contemporary work too, you know, to give them the sense that poetry is very much alive. Because you know, when I was reading some really -- like really, really, you know, canonical works in my workshops, you know, sometimes that was helpful but then you know, there was no experience that I felt could in any way guided me and then how I wanted to live my life maybe? >> Jennifer Chang: Yeah, I guess, that means really ironical that the poems that helped you through the experience of lonely workshops was Aimee's poem [laughter]. >> Janine Joseph: Yeah. >> Aimee Nezhukumatathil: I did not plan this at all [laughter]. >> Jennifer Chang: But then also, I mean, also it speaks to what you were both doing was looking for other curriculums in other spaces and -- is there something you would say about identity as a kind of element of craft? I mean, how do you -- how do you respond to students? Do you think workshops are changing now is what I'm saying, especially since you're in a teaching position? >> Aimee Nezhukumatathil: Sure, I think just one tangible way it's changing is that the insistence of italics of foreign words is not -- it's not a mandate anymore. You know, before, if I used a word like -- it's not even -- "bangus" which is a specific type of Filipino fish, people would be like, "I don't know what that is because I've never heard of this. You must italicize it." So we would be like -- so on a craft level, it seemed the wrong move to me because I don't say, "Hey, Justin, would you like a dinner of bangus?" [ Laughter ] And not, you know, so -- but I felt like it was like just putting this spotlight on something whereas I think now, more and more, I'm so pleased when I see just this vibrancy and this -- of language in there. So it's not -- so I'm not even aware of like -- so this small little detail on craft but I'm not nearly as kind of nervous as I was about throwing in foreign words in there as well because that's -- that's the world. >> Janine Joseph: Yeah. >> Aimee Nezhukumatathil: There's, you know, we delve into Spanish and French just without even knowing it. >> Jennifer Chang: Without telling you. >> Aimee Nezhukumatathil: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. >> Janine Joseph: I would say the internet has really helped [laughter]. I mean, you know, if I think about my experience especially as an undergraduate because I would have those workshop moments too where someone would say, you know, "Can you change those English words to something in Tagalog," right? And then -- so in the revised version, I would just add it, right, like a word in Tagalog and I would think, I don't even talk this way with my family. Like -- and also like I was, you know, there were words that I -- that were reserved for the family and there were words that I didn't feel like putting into my poems because for me, that workshop space was not necessarily a familial space. But then -- so you know, as people are kind of throwing up these words with [inaudible] ideas, you know like put more like dessert in there, like if your speaker is undocumented like -- my God, like put the cactus, put all of these other things in there. Like now, that's an opportunity in the classroom to say like, "Let's do some research. Let's [inaudible]. Let's do an image search." It's like you know, it's a way of just like expanding the vocabulary of all of the students in the room. I mean, not necessarily say that what we would pull up on Wikipedia would in any way help, you know, the poem. But again, just as a kind of reminder that the world is so much larger than what we understand even, you know, sitting in our desks. >> Jennifer Chang: Well, you bring up "Wrap" which I didn't expect you to do because I was thinking about wrecks especially Janine. I don't know the poem by Aimee or I don't remember it. But the word "wreck" comes up a lot in your book. And you have a poem called "Wreck." And it struck me as very descriptive of the consciousness of your speakers but also the kind of provisional [inaudible]. And so maybe there's a way to think about wreck as poetics. So I wonder if you could talk a little bit about why this was important to you, maybe it has to do with Aimee [laughter] or maybe there is a kind of poetic element to thinking about wrecks -- everything is kind of a wreck. You're a wreck. The poem's a wreck. America's a wreck [laughter]. >> Janine Joseph: Why do we talk [inaudible]? Why do we talk a lot about wrecks but I think -- >> Jennifer Chang: You guys [inaudible]. >> Janine Joseph: Wrap -- yours is "Wrap." >> Aimee Nezhukumatathil: Yeah, yeah, yeah. >> Janine Joseph: Wrap, wrap, wrap. >> Jennifer Chang: Oh right. >> Janine Joseph: Which is very close to wreck. >> Jennifer Chang: Yeah, yeah [laughter]. You're the wreck and you're the wrap [laughter]. But why wreck? >> Janine Joseph: So in 2008, my father and I were involved in a car accident. We were hit from behind by a driver who the police had estimated was going anywhere between 50 to 70 miles an hour on a semi-residential road just based on the damage alone. So a small PSA, don't text and drive. So in that car, I mean, we survived. Both of us survived. We were in the Subaru so that was my commercial [laughter]. >> Jennifer Chang: I guess you were. >> Janine Joseph: I mean, yes [laughter]. So my -- you know, we both had like bruising. My dad had a hairline fracture in his collarbone but I had suffered a pretty severe concussion and was pretty much on a loop about a 20-second loop for days on end. And so that poem, the poem "Wreck" that's in my book writes this out of that particular experience but I would say that it actually did something in terms of my poetics in a way. I mean, I hadn't been thinking about wreck before that. But I was in the middle -- or maybe about three-fourths of the way through this manuscript when I had the concussion and my memory was gone. I had no idea what I was writing. I didn't know who I was. I started confusing myself with the speaker that though she's very much based from my life, she's not me. So I spent, you know, quite some time trying to figure out who I was, who she was and my various identities. And that changed very much with my poetics because I relied so much on my memory and I relied so much on being able to craft a narrative, right, so take all these different experiences that I've had as a way of like linking them together to say something much larger about the family, about immigration. And suddenly like, those memories were all gone and all those ties were completely severed. But here's the thing. One of the very first things that came to me after that accident was you are a poet. And I had no idea what that meant. And I had no idea what to do with that word or this identity. But I remember lying down in bed and it was just there. And I was like, "Oh, interesting!" [Laughter] Right? So it came to me. Nothing else came to me, only that. You know, I didn't even remember why I had like a neck brace on. But this identity came back to me and in that way -- I don't know, it kind of taught me to trust that the words would always come back? Which maybe is not something that I would say if something I was like hit with dementia, right, or like something else. I know that very much. I'm saying that in the space of like some kind of privilege and some kind of able-bodiedness but that came back. The words started coming back. And it just kind of reshaped how I thought how a poem could be made. >> Jennifer Chang: So I have to ask -- there's a poem -- you write it actually, it's Landscape with American Dream and there's that moment where the speaker speaks about her two brothers. We are all wrecks. >> Janine Joseph: What wrecks we were. >> Jennifer Chang: Yeah, what wrecks we were. What expert wrecks burning down those sun spun [laughter] streets. So was that before or after? >> Janine Joseph: That was before. >> Jennifer Chang: Oh my God! >> Janine Joseph: That was before [laughter]. All those poems about driving without a license and driving cars was all before -- before the wreck, yeah. But I don't know, what wrecks we were sounded better than like what hot messes we were. [ Laughter ] >> Jennifer Chang: This next question is for Aimee. Aimee, I've always admired your work for its almost scientific engagement of nature. And that reading the books again, sort of those conversation, I was also realizing, there's also a lot of history in the books. And it was kind of like an entanglement between history and nature. I'm thinking about poems like [Inaudible], a natural history of the color red, reference folklore, [inaudible] tales, [Inaudible]. So I wonder if you could talk a little bit about that relationship between history and the environment and maybe perhaps how it figures in our new work. I think that you're writing more about history now too. >> Aimee Nezhukumatathil: You know, oh my goodness, these are all such brilliant, brilliant questions. So trying to figure out nature and history and the whole swirl of things and mythology and folklore, you know, these are things that I've been -- I feel so cheesy saying it. I am such a complete nerd and I -- >> Janine Joseph: I knew that [laughter]. >> Aimee Nezhukumatathil: I am aware of this, I know and she still loves me but so -- I don't remember a time when my parents would just take me to the library. I never -- I didn't know novels. I didn't know stories. What I would do -- my idea still of a good time is -- and I'm hesitant to even say this out loud but is to read a book about shells like -- or the giant squid, or to curl up by a fireplace and read about minerals and gems like, I'm still that same little girl. >> Jennifer Chang: But the history is kind of is to get judged by your approach so -- >> Aimee Nezhukumatathil: It is, it is. >> Jennifer Chang: -- in your [inaudible] you were writing about history kind of transformed to contemporary era and how we deal with the past. You're just like we don't deal with the past. >> Aimee Nezhukumatathil: That's true. That's true. And I think -- I think for a lot of it is as that little girl reading these books on science and, you know, biography so I did like biographies. That to me like you know, Harriet Tubman, Anne Boleyn -- these are all like women I just were so fascinated by. And as a grown-up, I'm still fascinated by them. With the rare exception, Harriet Tubman was a very, very rare exception. I never saw any brown girls in any of these books about nature, history. I mean, it was very much kind of a footnote, that kind of thing. And so I don't think I ever sit at my desk to say, "I will now insert a brown girl now in history." But it's a way for me to kind of find my place in this whole, you know, thing called history. You know, but also to see my relation to science, my relation to the outdoors, why do we not see any brown girls outside of nature writing as often, you know, still and it's 2016. So do brown girls not like the outdoors? I know that's not true. But why are they not writing about her or why are they not being published in places like Outside Magazine or things like that? So it's all very complicated but I think it's borne from a place of not seeing anybody who looks like myself. And when I say brown girl, I would have been happy with a Latina, you know. I would have been happy by a half -- you know, any, any, anything. But it was all from this kind of Caucasian male point of view which was great and I was still entranced and enchanted but I think now, especially there's a lot of girls coming up. When I visit elementary schools and high schools that are so excited about science, so excited about nature and they want to see themselves in books of them as well. So yeah, I mean, it's really kind of just a refiguring of what is my [inaudible] -- so much of my first kind of early workings were you know, coming of age narratives of my own life. Now, I'm just wanting to look outward. >> Jennifer Chang: Yes, it's just like you're trying to find a way to write other histories that already exist. And so maybe this is a question I may ask you guys is what are you trying to write that you don't -- that you find is missing? >> Janine Joseph: Well -- >> Aimee Nezhukumatathil: Yeah, go ahead, go ahead. >> Janine Joseph: Well, I mean, for me, of course it was just writing through my undocumented experience especially, being someone who's coming from the Philippines. Now the new work is exploring both the car accident, the memory loss, the concussion, and all of that good stuff because that was also happening [inaudible] time that I was applying to become a naturalized citizen. So my memory was wiped out the same exact time that I was becoming an American [laughter]. Which again, right, like it's part of me writing myself into -- >> Jennifer Chang: You have to -- in other words, you [inaudible]. >> Janine Joseph: [Laughter] I know, I know [laughter] but so much of that is me writing myself into this narrative that is so far being controlled. I mean and I think just my experience in the workshop when people say like, "Put in the cactus. Like put in an amiga." Right, like and me putting it in there and having -- and then having to go research a little bit and then saying, "Wait, why -- what is happening here?" And I remember a workshop that I was in -- or I was sitting in office hour's poet [Inaudible] and he was trying to understand what it was that I was doing. And I finally said, "I am trying to write the girl out of the desert." And he was like, "All right. That's a starting point." And so I just started removing all of this -- all of the desert landscape that I had not personally experienced, right, like that was not my experience. And I was writing what they knew. >> Aimee Nezhukumatathil: That's so interesting about writing out -- writing the desert -- like taking the desert away from the narrative, right? It makes it, you know, yeah -- it makes no sense that anybody who knows you knows that desert does not apply to your life. Right now, I'm working on essays actually so not poems. And although poems are always kind of popping up here and there. Right now, I think [inaudible] from a gender earlier -- I'm about 50% done with a collection of [inaudible] nature essays and they're also being illustrated. So that's been an interesting process. It's the book basically that I wished, you know, again that I was reading in high school or something. And it's about kind of the wonders that kind of don't get -- the wonders of the animal and plant world that don't get talked about. It came -- the nuggets of it came from -- there's a poem I was researching in Lucky Fish where I was researching, I was reading about pygmy rabbits. And as I was composing the poem, I just -- as I do on a normal day. You know, just reading pygmy rabbits [laughter]. And before I could finish drafting the poem, the last pygmy rabbit on Earth died. Like on Earth died -- so that was the first time. It was so stunning. I kept saying, "Wait -- wait a minute. Not the last one? That was not the last, last one. It was the last one on Earth." So that to me kind of shook up my whole -- you know, I think you mentioned the internet before. And I loved pouring over it -- I go to the, you know, the [inaudible] and research facilities all over the country and talk with botanists and things. But it is very easy to just be able to click and see. There's now, you know, webcams you can check on you know, sea lions, and manta ray, or whatever, you know, that kind of thing. But yeah, the last pygmy rabbit was gone so there became an immediacy for me about all the kind of -- the plants and animals that I loved as a little girl and encountered basically throughout my readings, you know, to the present day. Doing small little snippets so nothing's over five pages but it's a small kind of lyric meditation with about maybe 10%, you know, memoir kind of thrown in. But it's really, the focus is on these strange and beautiful animals and plants that are maybe not really thought of as beautiful and strange by people. So the comb jelly, the narwhal is one of my favorites and people -- if you guys know a narwhal, the skin is mottled so it looks -- it comes from the Norse word for corpse basically. So it's not really -- you don't really see any stuff. Maybe now, you see some stuff on narwhals but not very much. It looks like floating corpses, a whole pod of them. But they have a tooth that sticks. It's punctured through its skin so it's not really a huggable -- nobody really says like, "Oh, you're my little narwhal." You know [laughter], nothing like that. But I love those kind of things. So that's terrific for me [laughter]. I know, I told you I was such a dork. I'm such a nerd. >> Jennifer Chang: Well, Aimee, I think it's time to ask the audience if they have any questions. >> Robert Casper: And if you don't mind, I'll just [inaudible] so we can make sure you capture the question on videos -- so again, please raise your hand, I'll turn on the mike. >> Janine Joseph: No pressure, okay. >> Hello. Why is there so much anger and fear regarding the undocumented in this country? >> Jennifer Chang: Janine [laughter]. >> Janine Joseph: It's all over the news [laughter]. Well, so do you mean regarding the undocumented or being someone who's undocumented because I think so much of that overlaps, right? I mean, I -- I'm trying to think of a way to answer that question without generalizing the experiences of immigrants particularly undocumented immigrants because undocumented immigration or -- and immigration in general is just not created equally. You know, when people say that the system is broken, here's one example. I immigrated as I mentioned, when I was eight years old. It was 1991 and when I found out that I was undocumented, it was during my senior year of high school when I actually got back my -- the report after filling out my [inaudible] where it said that you were not a citizen. You can't get any funds for college. I was graduating as a valedictorian. But when I visited, when I went to see a nonprofit immigration lawyer, he had pretty much spelled out that the paperwork for people coming from the Philippines was so far behind that in 2001, they were still working on applications from 1990. >> Jennifer Chang: Oh geez. >> Janine Joseph: So when people write -- so there right, like there is that anger, there is that pain, there is that sadness. And he pretty much just told me that what I needed to do was get pregnant which I didn't do [laughter], right? So I mean, I feel like maybe just offering that little kind of specific tidbit might -- in help inform like why this is such a frustrating experience. And I think, you know, if you're someone from the outside looking in, it can be really frustrating if you don't understand how the immigration system works, right? Like when people say like go to the back of the line like -- it probably doesn't exist and if it does, it exists -- there are so many lines, so many -- so many lines. I mean, that's just specifically the Philippines. You know, it may -- someone coming from Europe might have an entirely different experience. >> Just as a follow up, I wonder if you had people talk about how poems as a forum allowed you -- or helped you to address that sense of -- that sense of identity and shifting and you know. >> Janine Joseph: So I actually had first started out writing a novel. So after I found out that I was undocumented and had filled out the paperwork to go to community college, I decided then that I was going to write a novel, right? BecauseI thought I have a story to tell and for some reason, at that time, you know, when I was just barely graduating high school, I thought the only way to tell stories was through writing a novel. And I got maybe about 70 pages into that and realized that I couldn't tell that story, right, because I had no way of being able to tell a straightforward narrative. And so pretty much, I deleted that -- no, I didn't really delete that. It exists [laughter]. But no one will ever see it, right? I think it's on a floppy disk. But you know, writing through poetry allowed me to break up that kind of straightforward narrative the way that maybe most people understand immigration, right, which is that a family comes from another country. They have this American dream. They apply for paperwork and then they become Americans, right, and that's the end of the story, right? It has this nice clear arc. And my arc certainly was not that way. And my family was a mixed status family, right. So even within my family, we all had very, very different experiences with immigration. And being able to write about that through poetry, right, where there was this central idea, central theme, central experience that I can approach the multiple angles like for me, poetry was the way to do it. I mean, maybe if I had taken a, you know, gone to graduate school first and figured out how to write a more complicated novel [laughter] like I said, this is chapter one. I just noticed my [inaudible] -- my chapters were getting smaller and smaller. I was becoming more and more secretive. [ Laughter ] >> I wanted to [inaudible]. Since this is a Kundiman featured event, I wonder if the three of you had actually talked about the importance of Kundiman to you both in terms of your writing and in terms of your sense of community. >> Aimee Nezhukumatathil: That's very sharp. Sure, Kundiman for me has been -- and observing in its capacity as a faculty member and I think, a staff member of the most -- this most recent summer, and it's the kind of community and group that I wish was in existence when I was an undergrad, when I was a grad student. It is a place where I think, and I don't -- I don't know how else to describe it without sounding cheesy so I'm just going to say it. But it is like instant family when you walk into a room, like that's absolutely not scripted that Janine and I can't remember if we ever met. Because I feel like it's been, you know, well over a decade. I know that's not true. But I don't remember like it's suddenly with the -- so with the internet, I was lucky. I guess I've never been so lucky in some ways that there was no social media when I was in grad school. There was a small bit of sadness though in knowing that I think if there was such a media, I think I would have been able to connect with poets from around the country -- and not just, you know, Asian-American poets but just poets in general around the country. But I think what sets Kundiman apart is that there is an absolute freedom to risk on the page as well as risk off the page. In terms of just being able to say like, "Hey, you know, I'm undocumented," and that's not the main thing that a person sees about you or being Filipino, half -- or half-Filipino, half-Indian is not the first thing that people see. It's definitely a part of me but it's not the main kind of thing of me. And so it's a lot of freedom from explaining. It's a lot of freedom to just kind of get busy on the page and to have that immediate kind of support in that capacity. And I've never -- this is my 15th year of teaching. I tallied this up not too long ago and I was stunned. So 15 years of teaching at the college level and I want to say I have seven writers of color in my classes total. And I live in a rural kind of a place. But that's -- it makes me so sad, you know that kind of thing. So when I teach at Kundiman, it's amazing to see a room full of people who look like me, you know it's, frankly, I mean, it's just -- it's amazing when I have never had that before ever. >> Jennifer Chang: Yeah. >> Janine Joseph: So I'm a Kundiman fellow. I graduated in and I graduated in 2014. And I feel like I have a number of stories where I have this moment where I realize this is why Kundiman exists. I'll share one with you and it was from my first retreat actually. Another fellow had encouraged me to apply and I didn't really know what Kundiman was at the time. So this was in 2007 so Kundiman was what? Three, four years old at that time and, you know, this fellow kept just chiming, "You know, you have to apply." And I really didn't know what to do at Kundiman because at that time again, right, like I didn't want anyone to know anything about me. And I didn't know what it would mean to be around other Asian-Americans especially because like you know, you sort of internalize the things that you see on the news about immigration, right? And so for me, undocumented immigration didn't even exist for Asian-Americans, right? And so, I go to this first retreat and the sun had just set and we were walking through -- and this was still when it was at -- >> Jennifer Chang: UVA. >> Janine Joseph: UVA -- so we're walking through. It's getting dark and there were all these fireflies around. And I don't know what prompted me like again, I don't code switch all the time. But I just said like, "It's paputukan," which in Tagalog is like fireworks. And then there were so many people who around me were just like, "Oh yeah, yeah!" And like that for me, it's like this -- Kundiman experience, right? Like what Aimee's talking about where suddenly, right, you're not needing to explain anything. I mean, one from me to even just say that word suggests already, right, like that already tells me that I felt like I was home? And I felt like I was with family. And just the fact that people knew what I was talking about and I didn't even have to translate and that was, that was it. >> Jennifer Chang: I was like -- pass the mike. >> Janine Joseph: Oh [laughter]. I guess [inaudible]. >> Jennifer Chang: My experience at Kundiman is a little different because I've always been a staff member. And so I didn't get, you know, the benefits of being a fellow or being a faculty member. But in 2003, I had just been back to New York after living in San Francisco for a couple of years. And I went to one of those stuffy, uptight [inaudible] parties where everybody bored me [laughter]. And there, I met Joseph Legaspi and Sarah Gambito who had [inaudible] at Kundiman and, you know, they were so outgoing and friendly and they started telling me about this passion project. They wanted to get a bunch of Asian-American writers together -- the poets and help each other and form a community and have workshops and connect across federations. And I just thought, "They're crazy." [Laughter] It's not going to work. People don't like each other. [Inaudible] and I [inaudible] the loneliness that Aimee and Janine were talking about into the workshop. It was inherent to being a writer. So I discovered when we started working together and doing these retreats and organizing these readings was that the loneliness is not inherent to being a writer. The loneliness I was feeling [inaudible] to my background and always feeling like I don't fit in. I don't know that I fit into Kundiman but I feel like I have people who have taught me about the possibilities of community and how you can be a writer through generous practice, through change, and it is a social engagement and an ethical engagement. It doesn't compromise your writing. It doesn't compromise your aesthetics or your desire for solitude. Because I think we're all rather solitary, each of us because we want to be when we always have this sort of connection that brings -- I mean, I have such wonderful memories of each of your [inaudible] retreats that I've [inaudible] retreats. Like I knew Janine was amazing [laughter] when she came to the retreat and they were doing some kind of [inaudible] contest. They were pinning up your legs and [laughter] and I never participate because I'm not a [inaudible]. [ Laughter ] Janine is in her [inaudible] of a poetic force has [inaudible] the moment and it was a dance. And she was -- she wiggled her hips in this form [inaudible] and I just thought, "This woman is so brave and hilarious." And I did something that wasn't probably -- that was your first retreat. >> Janine Joseph: Yeah, it was. >> Jennifer Chang: That was about seven years ago. >> Janine Joseph: Yeah. >> Jennifer Chang: I look at -- this is like history in action. >> Janine Joseph: Yes. No, like nine years ago. >> Jennifer Chang: Shit [laughter]. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. [ Laughter ] >> So Kundiman's about 10-plus years old now, right. [Inaudible] was 20-plus years old and you know, you have now people coming to these organizations, had the opportunity of having Kundiman and [Inaudible] and [inaudible] around probably all of their high school experience, all of their college years, right. And they're arriving at these organizations with a literary [inaudible] that's so different than what it was. There was no possible and sort of possible [inaudible] 10 or 20 years ago. So I'm curious, and this is a conversation we're having within Kappi Kanem. You know, how are you handling the intergenerational dialog within the organization? Because you have some people who are arriving now and readily taking advantage of the states that organizations are creating. But maybe they're not as aware and not as familiar with the writers and the work that was put in to get to 20. >> Aimee Nezhukumatathil: I mean, I think one way to take a look at that, and that's really perceptive, and those of you who don't know in the audience, Kappi Kanem [phonetic] and, Cal, feel free to jump in, is an organization to promote African-American poets and Kundiman is very much based and modeled after it, actually. But one thing, going back to your question, that I would say is -- I think people are actively or subliminally -- I hope it's actively, promoting and trying to teach generosity and openness and which is not as, you know, probably very easy to teach. But in terms of what you were saying, there's some -- I think -- and it's a very exciting time to be a poet in America, I think, right now. Hands down the most exciting time to be a poet. But I think sometimes, it -- there might be -- entitlement is not the wrong word, but I think maybe people not understanding there was a time when you could open up a book and not see any writers of color and nobody would say a thing. You know, now, you get 10 articles about why this was a bad thing. You know, that kind of -- and then, when I see -- I think -- I don't personally think that it's my duty to chastise other people at all, but I think when people get a seat at the table it's absolutely crucial for them to scoot over to the side and pull up another seat for somebody else. And when I see that not happening, I don't -- again, I don't actively come around, because I don't have the time nor the patience to say, hey. You need to do this. But I think that by modeling generosity and modeling not only -- being a mentor, the kind of mentor you wish that you had when -- that I had when I was really, really hungry for one and looking for one, I think is the best way. And I see this is so -- I'm trying to keep it cool here. But this is, like, mind-blowing to me that Janine ever looked to my poems as a model for anything or that is using it for [inaudible]. You know, that kind of thing. I had little to no Asian-American models when I was growing up, so for example. So I just hope that -- I'm not perfect in any way, shape, or means, but I think hopefully one thing that I try to model is being generous to everybody, not just Asian-American writers, but to writers coming up fresh out of high school or to the helpless student who's saying, hey. I want to be a poet. I don't know what to read. Can you share some stuff with me? >> Jennifer Chang: I think that's the right answer. I also think that when you're talking about Kyle is something that I worry about, I grapple with, and part of it -- I think this happened, Kappi Kanem, is that it started out as a grassroots organization, where everyone pulled their sleeves up and started working and it's become an institution where, to get into Kundiman is a CV line. And I meet very talented Asian writers all the time who apply time and again and they don't get in and it's hard to say, like, we are inclusive when it's -- you don't -- by the nature of its success, it has to be small, it has to be an intimate experience. I think this is probably too because the world of writers has changed. I think it's -- I think Dean is right. It's a wonderful time to be a poet, but I also think that people are more professional wise and I don't know how to answer that. I'll admit I haven't been back to a tree [inaudible] now. It's complicated. But I think doing what Aimee advocates for, which is that everyone is someone who needs a connection, a mentor, [inaudible] in the conversation of poetry. >> Janine Joseph: I feel like you both have answered that question really well. I mean, I would say maybe if I were going to add anything, it would be just from my experience, being the one with the lone fellows who did not return in a timely manner. So I became a fellow in 2007 and then I didn't come back from my second retreat until 2014. And I'm pretty sure we're supposed to graduate within five years, and I graduated in 2015. Right? So I -- >> Jennifer Chang: She was delinquent. >> Yeah. It's like I kept changing my majors or something. And so, I came -- I went to the retreat at UVA. I went through the retreat in Fordham and then I was at the retreat when it opened itself up to fiction writers. Right? So I've been through some pretty big changes with Kundiman and the -- when I came back in 2014, I was already in an assistant professor. And suddenly, I was in these workshops with I'm going to say young writers, but I don't mean that to be -- I mean, like, some of them were -- there -- I think we maybe even had a fellow who was in -- still working on their undergraduate degree. There were students who were working on their MFAs. But I was in these generative workshops where I was producing stuff that I had just written hours before the workshop. And so, this kind of -- right. Like, it wasn't even this issue of, like, a generational thing. It was just, like, no. We are all starting from scratch, here, all together. And I'm asking for feedback from someone who is still pursuing their college degree and I am so open and willing to listen to what they have to teach me because I am just so raw on this page. I don't know if that answers anything, but I guess I can maybe just add that and I think that speaks to how the workshops happen in Kundiman. Because you're -- it's an entirely generative experience and so no one comes with their -- the manuscript that they've already been sending out to places and they're bringing in polished work as a way of patting themselves on the back. Right? Like, it's just like you show up there. You get this prompt and you figure it out while everybody else is figuring it out. >> Left: I think that kind of model has really encouraged rawness and that the art is primary at the retreats. But the professionalization I think is something that we are opening ourselves to. >> Janine Joseph: Yeah. >> And yet, it's also -- it changes those things a little bit and it just changes things a little bit. I don't -- I think that might just be that -- it's Rita's problem. >> Robert Casper: On that note, I want to thank our readers, Janine Joseph, Aimee Nezhukumatathil, and our moderator, Jen Chang, for a terrific evening. Thanks to all of you for coming out. A couple of things. First of all, there are two books for sale in the back. I'm sorry to say there's a wonderful little Jay [phonetic] sculpture with cards that you can pick up that give Janine Joseph's website. You should go check out her website and if you want to get a book of hers there, please do. I'm sorry we don't have them here. You should go do that as soon as you get home. But you can get books by Aimee and Jen and get them signed. Also, you all have surveys on your seat or next to you. Please fill them out. We use these surveys to determine what kind of programs we should be doing. They're very helpful to us. So you can give them to me, you can put them on the table. Finally, speaking of events, we have a great event coming up next Tuesday at 4:00 o'clock, Poetry, Publishing, and Race, with Cathy Park Hong, Evie Shockley, Carmen Gimenez Smith, nd the editor of Poetry Magazine, Don Share. So I hope you come. You can check it out on our website. You can see all the events that we have going on. Thanks so much for coming out and have a good night. [ Applause ] >> This has been a presentation of the Library of Congress. Visit us at loc.gov.