The Academy of American Poets stands in solidarity with the Asian, Asian American, and Pacific Islander communities and our literary colleagues in speaking out against racism and discrimination of all forms, and in condemning acts of violence.
We join in grieving the loss of lives taken in Atlanta last week: Delaina Ashley Yaun, Xiaojie Tan, Daoyou Feng, Paul Andre Michels, Hyun Jung Grant, Soon Chung Park, Suncha Kim, and Yong Ae Yue. And we are keeping Elcias R Hernandez-Ortiz in our thoughts.
In addition to making individual contributions to benefit the families of those affected and to organizations working against bigotry and xenophobia, we want to help share these Resources & Ways to Support Asian-American and Pacific Islander Communities compiled by Creative Capital and these Resources for Writers in Support of the AAPI Community compiled by Poets & Writers.
We want to extend care and compassion to AAPI poets in our community. We have also made special donations from the Academy of American Poets to the Asian American Writers Workshop and Kundiman in support of their work, thanks to financial contributions from our Board members.
We encourage you to read and share these poems by AAPI poets.
As Maxine Hong Kingston said, “In a time of destruction, create something.” We are profoundly grateful for poetry as a place to envision new ways of being that help transform our world