Day Eight invites DC residents to attend a free workshop and salon exploring AAPI identity and poetry, Thursday, September 5th from 6-8pm. Poets Regie Cabico, Reg Ledesma, Pacyinz Lyfoung, Sunu Chandy, and Ishanee Chanda will share commissioned poems and attendees will then have opportunity to explore and express themes of Asian and Pacific Islander identity in breakout sessions facilitated by the poets.
The workshop and salon will take place at the Mt. Pleasant Neighborhood Library, meeting room 1. Space is limited and Day Eight encourages advance registration. If space permits, on-site registration will also be available the night of the event. Submit the form below in this post to sign up.
The event is the culmination of a project designed by poet and project director Regie Cabico in collaboration with Robert Bettmann (Day Eight.) The event will provide participants with a safe and welcoming space in which to explore their own background with published poets leading them. Participants in the workshop will be invited to submit their poetry for selection and publication in a special section of Day Eight’s literary magazine, The Mid Atlantic Review.
ABOUT THE PROJECT DIRECTOR AND FEATURED POETS
Regie Cabico is a spoken word pioneer having won The Nuyorican Poets Cafe Grand Slam and later taking top prizes in three National Poetry Slams. He is an NYU Asian Pacific American Studies Artist In Residence. He is the author of the book, A Rabbit in Search of a Rolex, published in 2023 by Day Eight, and his work appears in over 30 anthologies including Aloud: Voices from the Nuyorican Poets Café, Spoken Word Revolution & The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry. He is also an editor of Day Eight’s literary magazine, The Mid-Atlantic Review.
Sunu P. Chandy is based in DC as a social justice activist, poet and civil rights attorney, and her family roots are in Kerala, India. Her poetry collection, My Dear Comrades, published by Regal House, features cover art by Ragni Agarwal. Sunu is a Senior Advisor with the non-profit organization, Democracy Forward, and a board member of the Transgender Law Center.
Pacyinz Lyfoung is a French-born and raised, Minnesota-grown, Hmong/Asian American woman poet, attorney and activist. She emerged as a poet among the Asian American Renaissance and the Hmong Literary Movement in MN. She has been published in the Gulf Review, the Mid-Atlantic Review, and others, and in anthologies including, Bamboo Among the Oaks: Contemporary Writing by Hmong Americans; To Sing Along The Way: MN Women Poets from Pre-Colonial Days to the Present; The Forgotten River: An Anacostia Swim Club member anthology; and, They Rise like a Wave: An Anthology of Asian American Women Poets.
Reg Ledesma is a queer first generation Filipino writer based in DC. They are a graduate of Duke University’s Master of Public Policy program and a Jack Kent Cooke scholar. Their writing explores topics such as Asian diaspora, colonization, historical revisionism in the Philippines, and queerness. In their free time, they co-organize the DC Liwanag Filipino-American Literature Festival.
Ishanee Chanda is a prose writer and poet from Dallas, Texas. She has been published on The Huffington Post, the Eckleberg Project, and ThoughtCatalog. Ishanee is a past winner of the Gordone Award for Creative Writing, and has participated in the Blackbox Writer’s Residency program.
This event is made possible by support from the DC Mayor’s Office on Asian and Pacific Islander Affairs (MOAPIA), the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, and individual donors to Day Eight.