Editor’s
Note
Kenji
Liu
As
a child, I'd often max out my library card and bring home dozens of
books.
Curled up in the sun on my parents' old couch, I devoured stacks of
sci-fi novels
in long sittings. As an adult I have less time, but I still use writing
to
examine my world and imagine new ones.
I think good creative writing sparks a partnership with the reader
because the
imagination is evoked. This is an active relationship rather than the
more
passive one that television provides. To riff off of Paolo Freire,
writing can
help you examine the limits and possibilities of your life, and by
extension
society.
Writing by Asian Americans has often struggled for readership and
distribution.
We have often had to start our own presses, create alternative media
and
promote our work at the grassroots. Aside from a few notable
exceptions, this
is still the case.
Additionally,
readership isn't guaranteed. Up until a couple years ago, literary
reading was
on an alarming decline in the US, especially among young people.
(Unfortunately, these studies did not include Asians.) We need to
cultivate
future readers.
Towards
this it's with great pleasure that I debut as Poetry Editor at Kartika Review with a wonderful
selection of contributions in this issue. Although the second half of
this
issue is specifically themed around “home,” in my mind this threads
through the
first section too – home as physical, imagined, alienated, changing,
gone, or pieced
together.
For
fiction, J. A. Pak writes of a grandmother who earns and loses a chance
at true
happiness. Peter Tieryas Liu's characters wander a city seeking lasting
human
connections with uncertain results. In Victor Luo's small town, a
sakura tree
brings a little magic into a young student's life as he or she
considers the
possibility of a mediocre life.
In
poetry, Vuong Quoc Vu draws us into the dream of an aging father
haunted by the
past. The tenderness and precariousness of a working-class family is
depicted
in Eugenia Leigh's poem about a mother's love for her small daughters.
Barbara
Jane Reyes asks a simple question about a father's home, unearthing
numerous
fragments. Aimee Suzara evokes Langston Hughes while firmly avowing the
place
of Filipinos in US history.
In
creative non-fiction, Amanda Griffith and Thai Le Nguyen show us the
sweet bond
between a young girl and her dog. Ancestry, citizenship and social
class mingle
provocatively in Michael Janairo's evolving relationship with the
Philippines.
Two lives arc toward each other and then apart in Tasha Matsumoto's
remembrance
of her relationship with her grandmother. Lastly, Josh Stenberg
struggles with
his assumptions as he recounts a late-night encounter with a migrant
shopkeeper
in Shanghai.
I
urge you to read these wonderful pieces actively, teasing out the
themes,
complexities and contradictions. Curl up in the sun somewhere with your
laptop,
e-reader, print out or actual paper book. See what kinds of worlds you
find
yourself in. Welcome to our seventh issue!
-- Kenji
Liu, Poetry Editor
