Between The Lines: Asian American Women’s Poetry

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In her new one-hour documentary Between the Lines: Asian American Women’s Poetry , Yunah Hong combines interviews with and readings by sixteen Asian American women poets to examine the complex convergence of experience, memory, and language behind the impulse to write. Encompassing a breathtaking diversity of histories, both public and personal, the sixteen poets include first, second, and third generation immigrants and racially mixed Americans of Asian descent from China, India, Japan, Korea, Singapore, Vietnam, Hawaii, and Jamaica. They range in age, aesthetics, and background from Mitsuye Yamada to Mei-Mei Berssenbrugge and from Chitra Divakaruni to let hi diem thuy to Staceyann Chin. Though sharing only the barest of outlines – that they are Asian American and female as well as poets – these women are joined by their passion for their writing. Between the Lines bring them together here, showing how they distill from the currents of their lives, the poetry that is their preoccupation and their work.

Structured around six basic areas of inquiry – Immigration, Language, Memory, Family, Spirituality, Reaching Out, and What It Means to Write – the documentary follows its subjects as they discuss the multiple circumstances that compelled them to write, from feminist theory to spiritual quests to the search for an American identity. Interviews with the poets are interspersed with significant moments in the history of Asian American women poets, archival footage, photographs, and more lyrical interpretations of the poetry rendered in both film and video. As such, Between the Lines is an exploration of the richly textured experiences that form the raw materials for art across generations and personal histories.

Author Bio

Presented By:

Meena Alexander is an award winning author and scholar. Her new book of poetry Birthplace with Buried Stones (TriQuarterly Books/ Northwestern University Press) is forthcoming in Fall 2013. Her volumes of poetry include Illiterate Heart (winner of the PEN Open Book Award), Raw Silk and Quickly Changing River. Her poetry has been translated into several languages and set to music. She has written the acclaimed autobiography, Fault Lines as well as two novels. She is author of the academic study Women in Romanticism and the book of essays Poetics of Dislocation. She is Distinguished Professor of English at the City University of New York and teaches at Hunter College and the Graduate Center, City University of New York.


Presented By:

Yunah Hong is an award-winning video/filmmaker, based in New York City. She grew up in Seoul, Korea. She studied art history, photography and design at the Seoul National University, graduating in 1985. Two years later she earned an M. A. in computer graphics at the New York Institute of Technology. While working as a designer in New York, she began to experiment with video. She has now made seven films, ranging in scale from a one-hour documentary to short experimental productions.

Her first work, “Memory/all echo” (1990), is an experimental video based on the Dictée by Theresa Hak Kyung Cha. It was broadcasted on CUNY-TV in 1991 and has been distributed to libraries and universities throughout the U.S. Her second “Through the Milky Way” (1992), is an experimental video evoking the experience of Korean women immigrants in Hawaii at the turn of the century. It was awarded First Prize in Video Art at the 1992 Tam Tam International Video Festival in Italy and broadcast on WNYC-TV. Her short film, “Here Now” (1995), frames a day in the life of a woman who, at age 30, finds her mind bouncing between fantasy and reality. It was awarded the Special Jury Award at the 2nd Seoul Short Film Festival in Korea 1995. Her feature screenplay, “Monday”, was an official selection of PPP 1998: Pusan International Film Festival Film Market in Korea.

Her documentary, “Becoming an Actress in New York” (2000) is about three Korean American actresses who pursue their big dreams in New York. It was broadcasted in Korea in 2001 and 2004. It was named a final nominee for aMedia’s 2001 Ammy Awards for Best Documentary. Her documentary, “Between the Lines: Asian American Women’s Poetry” (2001) brings forth how the lives of Asian American woman poets are reflected in the poetry they produce. It received a CINE Golden Eagle Award in 2002. It has received critical acclaim and has been exhibited throughout the States.

Over the past nineteen years since she became a video/filmmaker, her video/films have focused on women, and the arts. She has worked on various genres of film and video -- experimental, drama, computer animation and documentary -- to explore the possibilities of video/film form and new ways to visualize personal stories and history. Currently, she is in the final stage of finishing a new documentary, “Anna May Wong: In Her Own Words” which will combine her previous experience of working in both documentary and fiction filmmaking to create a memorable portrait of Wong’s extraordinary life. She also published an article about Wong, “A Twentieth Century Actress” with Peter X Feng in Quarterly Review of Film and Video, Routledge in 2006.

She is a recipient of the New York Foundation for the Arts fellowship in video (2000, 1992), the Media Alliance Media Arts fellowship (1993), and the Art Matters fellowship (1995). She received funding from the New York State Council (2004, 2002, 1999 & 1995), the Jerome Foundation (2006, 1994), the Asian Women Giving Circle (2009), Urban Artist Initiatives (2008) and the Pyramid Arts Center's Diverse Forms Artist Project (1992). She also received a media fund and a James Yee mentorship award from Center for Asian American Media in 2008 and 2005.

She served as video grant advisor to the New York Foundation for the Arts (2004-8).