Asian and Pacific Islander (AAPI) poets offer insightful, diverse, and richly unique perspectives that greatly enhance the literary landscape. Exploring themes of social justice, heritage, identity, cultural belonging, selfhood, and diaspora, their works embody and reflect the challenges faced by AAPI people, and encourage readers to deconstruct and think critically about their own lived experiences.
To honour the incredible impact that AAPI poets have made, this article showcases the work of several highly-celebrated writers whose emotional honesty, clarity, and depth, promises to resonate and inspire new ways of thinking.
The Undressing by Li-Young Lee
This moving collection from trailblazing poet Li-Young Lee examines the experiences of Lee’s father, who was held as a political prisoner in Indonesia for a year.
This anthology, which took more than a decade to write, deals closely with themes of family, love, divinity, and exile. It fuses memory, culture, and history to reflect upon his family’s complex experiences of fleeing persecution and the challenge of discovering a new identity.
“These poems are powerful, passionate, and beautifully crafted. Lee goes after the ineffable, that which touches us most deeply inside. His poems excavate memory, move into the mystery of whatever our notion of God is, and create fissures into the quake of our being.”
– Reader Review (Amazon)
With My Back to the World by Victoria Chang
Victoria Chang is a great innovator of poetic style and structure. She has written poems as obituaries and experimented in a notable Japanese form known as Waka. Many of her poetry collections share themes of depression and coping with grief and illuminate the difficulties that arise from living as an Asian-American Woman in the U.S. today.
With My Back to the World explores the writing and painting of Agnes Martin, an accomplished contemporary artist. Through this interesting lens, Chang seeks to question the nature of the self over time and to investigate what the human mind is artistically capable of.
“Chang’s poems about Agnes Martin’s art disturbs and uplifts […] A brave and bold collection of poetry that only Chang can deliver. Chang emotionally bleeds on the page much like Agnes Martin bleeds on the canvas.”
– Reader Review (Amazon)
Night Sky with Exit Wounds by Ocean Vuong
Famous for his debut prose-poetry novel, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous (which you can buy here), Vietnamese writer Ocean Vuong is also the author of several award-winning poetry anthologies.
His esteemed collection, Night Sky with Exit Wounds, is written in a unique lyrical style and has unsurprisingly received outstanding recommendations for its emotional honesty, power, and depth. Exploring themes of familial and cultural identity and the traumas Vuong has experienced as a result, this is a must-read for anyone looking for a collection that will stay with them long after finishing.
“Mesmerizing, unforgettable, and a heart open in your hand. Vuong holds back nothing. This is one to reread and keep on the desk. To hold tight to the connection of why we write!”
– Reader Review (Amazon)
Engine Empire by Cathy Park Hong
Cathy Park Hong’s Engine Empire is a trilogy of narrative and lyric poems that span a variety of genres and invoke an array of narrative voices. Redefining the Western sonnet and ballad forms, Hong reflects upon China’s troubled history of colonialism and industrialization and uses this to imagine a more prosperous future.
“This collection of poetry goes from boomtown to boomtown through past, present, and future holding up the pursuit of advancement up to the lens of the loneliness of humanity. The poems that result are hauntingly beautiful in their longing. Truly, the poems […] cannot go unread by lovers of good poetry or humans with a heart.”
– Reader Review (Amazon)
Girls are Coming Out of the Woods by Tishani Doshi
Trigger Warning: This poetry collection discusses sexual violence and assault. Please read the CWs/TWs prior to purchasing.
Girls Coming Out of the Woods is Tishani Doshi’s third poetry collection and works to address violence against women and girls.
Through her unapologetic portrayal of abused bodies and the endurance of the female spirit in the face of struggle, Doshi encourages us to recognise poetry as a redemptive and hopeful artistic practice, and as a form through which we can both lament and learn from the past to discover bolder and brighter futures.
“Amazing, supremely intelligent, superlative poetry. Stinging assessments of our brutal world and unedited, unbridled feelings uttered in non pretentious style and substance.”
– Reader Review (Amazon)
Oculus by Sally Wen Mao
Oculus by Sally Wen Mao is a collection of poems written and dedicated to Anna May Wong, Hollywood’s first Asian-American movie star.
The collection reflects upon Wong’s legacy as a pioneer of social justice, whilst also delving into the challenges she faced throughout her acting career. Here, Mao probes the idea of spectacle as an act of violence and seeks to highlight the issues that arise from being perceived through a lens you cannot control.
“Oculus is such a wonderful collection of poems! The language is so beautiful, and the content so rich and human and sharp. Very happy I picked this up.”
– Reader Review (Amazon)
Milk and Honey by Rupi Kaur
No list of AAPI poetry recommendations would be complete without mentioning the critically acclaimed writer and illustrator, Rupi Kaur. Her most famous work, Milk and Honey, celebrated its 10th anniversary last year and continues to inspire and spark conversation for its accessibility, highly confessional language, and pop sensibility.
This poignant collection of prose and poetry explores themes of love, heartbreak, violence, and the endurance of femininity through struggle. Split across four parts, Kaur focuses on the different forms that loss and grief can take and instructs her readers in how to find sweetness and consolation in spite, and often because of, these things.
“For anyone who’s ever been in a bad relationship, experienced heartbreak, had to pick up the pieces of themselves after someone took liberties with your heart. For anyone who’s had to learn or re-learn how to love themself. For the young, for the older. This book inspired me to feel and reflect and I truly took it to heart.”
– Reader Review (Amazon)
What better way to celebrate Asian and Pacific Islander voices than by diversifying our bookshelves and delving into these truly amazing, timely collections. Head to our socials to tell us what you’ll be reading this AAPI Heritage month!
To feel safe at all times is a fundamental human right; let’s work to make this world physically and mentally safe for everyone. Help is available at the National Sexual Assault Hotline: 1-800-656-4673.
Wanting to find some more brilliant AAPI writers? Read our article: 5 Of The Most Relatable AAPI Books to Read.
If you’re looking for the next book on your TBR, why not check out our Bookstr Poetry & Drama Recommendations page!
