We the Gathered Heat: Asian American and Pacific Islander Poetry, Performance, and Spoken Word

by Franny Choi (Editor)

A beautiful anthology featuring some of the brightest voices in contemporary American poetry who challenge, expand, and illuminate the meaning of “AAPI” in today’s world.

In this thoughtfully curated book, AAPI poets representing multiple generations, perspectives, and backgrounds come together to unpack and celebrate AAPI identity. Too often, Asian Americans are narrowly represented and stereotyped—this anthology pushes against such limited representation, lifting up writers whose ancestry is rooted in South Asian, Southeast Asian, and Polynesian regions, and beyond.

To introduce and contextualize each section of the book, the editors—Franny Choi, Bao Phi, Noʻu Revilla, and Terisa Siagatonu—include letters written to and from each other, reflecting on the history of AAPI communities and the lessons we can carry into the world we want to build. This book shows how there is no singular way to embody an AAPI identity, just as there is no singular way to be Latinx, Black, Muslim, queer, or otherwise, and liberating ourselves from such notions is the only way we can truly understand and care for each other in meaningful ways.

Contributors include Marilyn Chin, Carlina Duan, Joshua Nguyen, and many other AAPI voices, both established and emerging.

Genres: Poetry, Queer, LGBT, Anthologies

336 pages, Paperback

Published September 17, 2024

About the author

Franny Choi is a poet, performer, editor, and playwright. She is the author of Floating, Brilliant, Gone and the chapbook Death by Sex Machine. Her poems have appeared in Poetry Magazine, American Poetry Review, the New England Review, and elsewhere. She is a Kundiman Fellow, Senior News Editor for Hyphen, co-host of the Poetry Foundation's podcast VS, and member of the Dark Noise Collective. Her second collection, Soft Science, was released from Alice James Books in April 2018. A current Zell Postgraduate Fellow at the University of Michigan, she is currently based near Detroit, Michigan.

Reviews

[Amanda]

This is a very diverse anthology of AAPI poetry, spoken word, and performance art pieces. The work in this collection is by turns intimate, visceral, nostalgic, political, angry, hopeful, and expansive. It dares the reader to continue trying to define AAPI communities as solely one thing or another in the face of all these diverse and multilayered voices. While not always my particular taste in poetry (what is taste in poetry anyway?!), no one can deny how emotionally charged and incredibly personal these works are - wrapped in identity, stolen identity, loss of identity, or identity found anew.

One highlight of this collection is the true diversity it brings. AAPI rep is often solely portrayed as those with East Asian roots and while those stories are immensely important - so are all the others. So it was refreshing to have such diverse representation in this collection.

I am white, my husband is an immigrant, and my children are Asian American. I will continue to read and educate myself about the lived reality of the AAPI community for them, and for those living those realities now. In that light, I'm very grateful to have read this anthology.

Thank you to NetGalley and to Haymarket Books for the eARC. All opinions my own!

[Jamie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Superb. This is how to do an anthology, where the disparate voices are the point—how do we even define AAPI except as “the other,” non-white? Who is the “we” in question? To whom is that category useful? The poems are sorted into themes of “mourn,” “pronounce,” “fight,” “love,” each as powerful as the last. A cacophony, a mosaic, a whole that is more than the sum of its parts. As the subtitle indicates, it leans heavily on the oral tradition, and I would love to hear these pieces performed out loud.

ARC kindly provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

[bella · Rating 4 out of 5]

“I will weave your story into the library born within these bones so that our stories will never have to die so our stories will never have to live alone.”

It hesitate to use the AAPI acronym, but this anthology does a good job of highlighting the expansiveness of the community (and pointing out the acronym’s limitations). This collection explores migration, colonialism, connection, identity, and more. Editor Franny Choi has put together a stunning collaboration of powerful, moving poems.

[Ellen Marie · Rating 4 out of 5]

A beautiful collection. And such a variety, which I appreciated.

My favourites are “Why is Bruce Lee so sad”, “From real (g)estate”, “Let you through (poem for Alex Lin)”, “Half-past king Philip”, “Colonisation via transcription algorithm”, “Knots”, “Chanting the waters”, “Ode to a coloniser”, and “Grizzly bear”.

[Nathaniel · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very strong collection of poetry. I took my time with this and read it in little chunks every day. It's a poetry anthology that all poetry lovers should read. The insight and perspective within these pages is priceless.

[Isa Dalmacio · Rating 5 out of 5]

our peoples are so beautiful, what an incredible set of works. cried multiple times!

I want to read this at various moments of my life and see how differently they resonate

[Cheryl · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wish for them to witness this friendship first
hand–to taste the molé and the haianese
chicken rice we cook for each other, to
measure the oceans we’d swim, the
miles we’d travel, if only we had wings.
If they did, maybe they would think
otherwise. Maybe we’d show them how
to protect each other so beautifully,
we’d no longer need police. Jess X. Snow

I am fascinated by oceans and it has led to a fascination with the places around the world that are surrounded by oceans and their histories of colonization, brutality but also light. Also, the americo-euro-centric worldview is not working for the planet, so immersing ourselves in Pasifeka/Oceania voices is essential to decolonize the mind. Grateful for all the voices here. I have this map, showing the globe from a perspective of an unbroken Pacific Ocean that seems the truest map there is.



From the intro:

Dear we, I try to hold you long enough to feel your body heat.
But, like ocean, you vast & swell. I could never hold all of you or write a name for all your cycles, seen & unseen. Yet may I earn a closeness? Carry light & song between us as we search for intimacy that does not drown.
Or, maybe, I write this letter searching: how to breathe underwater, how to breathe through wildfires, through ash, through jet fuel spills & flooded cemeteries—are you relearning how to carry your dead too?
In Hawai‘i, the word ea denotes breath, rising, & liberation. Multiple & simultaneous. My ea is connected to your ea. We breathe together, we free together. What happens when we come from a place of abundance? What does abundance look like to you? What does it sound like, move like, taste like?
noʻu revilla (she/her/ʻo ia), ʻŌiwi (Hawai’i)

In Samoan, the word vā means the space between the between-ness: not empty space, not space that separates, but space that relates, that holds separate entities and things together in the Unity-that-is-All . . . the space that is context, giving meaning to things. Sometimes, the space is between you and I. Sometimes, it’s between us and land. Us and water. Us and ancestors. Us and future ancestors. Us and our shadows. Us and our wounds. Us and our ache to be free.
Uncle Albert Wendt says, “our va with others defines us.”
He is also the one who taught me that our goal shouldn’t be to maintain the same Oceania. Our goal is to reach for a new one.
Terisa Siagatonu (Samoan)

All excerpts:
Gazing at the Grand Canyon from the Moon by Jess X. Snow (Chinese)

On your thirtieth birthday,
you said take me to the Grand Canyon,
and I opened the door to the passenger seat,
and drove you to the largest wound in
North America. On the way there, you
translate my love poem into Spanish
and read it to your mother. Nosotres nos
cuidamos mejor que el estado. When you
put down the phone, I tell you, I want to
be your friend forever, when I actually I
meant you make me want to be kinder to
my mother. You turn on the car radio and
we hear the government respond to yet
another instance of people who look like
us attacking each other. I turn off the
radio, because I know what institution
they’d call for next. Instead, I wish for
them to witness this friendship first
hand–to taste the molé and the haianese
chicken rice we cook for each other, to
measure the oceans we’d swim, the
miles we’d travel, if only we had wings.
If they did, maybe they would think
otherwise. Maybe we’d show them how
to protect each other so beautifully,
we’d no longer need police.
…
I follow the river at the bottom with my fingers
until I reach your eyes. You close them
and let the tears flow. Where does it
hurt? I ask you. You are silent for a while
until you reply with: the whole planet. I
feel like we’re on the moon and looking
back at the Earth’s broken heart. And I’m
consoling her, from a million miles away:
saying I’m so sorry for all your pain.
…
There, I play you
an old love song in mandarin where the
singer sings to her homeland as if it
were a friend. You said: in my native
tongue, there is a song about the same
thing. And as you sang to me, I opened
my eyes and saw the steel fence ever so
slowly lift itself out from the sand.

Chanting the Waters by Craig Santos Perez (CHamoru from Guam)

for the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and water protectors around the world

Say: “Water is ____!” because our bodies are 60 percent water–– because my wife labored for 24 hours through contracting waves–– because water breaks forth from shifting tectonic plates–– Say: “Water is ____!” because amniotic fluid is 90 percent water–– because she breathed and breathed and breathed–– because our lungs are 80 percent water––

Say: “Water is ____!” because our drumming sounds like rain after drought echoing against taut skin–– because our skin is 60 percent water–– Say: “Water is ____!” because every day thousands of children die from water-borne diseases–– because, by the end of this poem, five children will die from water-borne diseases–– Say: “Water is ____!” because our daughter loves playing in the ocean–– because someday she’ll ask, “where does the ocean end?”–– because we’ll point to the dilating horizon–– Say: “Water is ____!” because our eyes are 95 percent water–– because we’ll tell her ocean has no end––

because sky and clouds lift ocean–– because mountains embrace ocean into blessings of rain–– because ocean-sky-rain fills aquifers and lakes–– because ocean-sky-rain-lake flows into the Missouri River–– because ocean-sky-rain-lake-river returns to the Pacific and connects us to our cousins at Standing Rock–– because our blood is 90 percent water–– Say: “Water is ____!” because our hearts are 75 percent water–– because I’ll teach our daughter our people’s word for water: “hanom, hanom, hanom”–– so the sound of water will always carry her home–– Say: “Water is ____!” “Water is ____!” “Water is ____!”

oceanus nullius by Sara Tenamoeata Segura Kahanamoku (Hawai’ian Kanak ‘Oiwi, Ma’ohi, and Catalan (white)

Haole make maps of surf breaks like they won’t remember,
as if the ocean is something that can be made to sit still.
They miss the quiet and dreamlike knowing
of tracing reefs in your mind,
of feeling deep within your belly from where
the waves will come before they arrive.
…
The seven-mile miracle, the haole called it,
as if this place didn’t have a name before their coming
staking breathless claims to seven miles of pristine, perfect,
un-interrupted surf.
Seven miles containing millennia,
tens of thousands of stories,
landscapes crafted from the very bones of our ancestors
flattened, reduced to a destination.
A background for growing scores, influenced,
getting famous off of a perfumed Hawai‘i life.
…

Exhibit: Acronym as Racial Identity by Franny Choi (Korean American)
This was before, I mean. Before history came down
in a fist wide enough for us all, Istanbul to Hilo—
before the One Hurt gathered us in its big, terrible shade.
Before we started calling ourselves “People of Calamity,”
or sometimes, “Survivors of Hemispheric Violence,”
on the days we remembered to survive. We were much harder
to define, before. We were unsolvable. And we shone.

Seiseiwei—Paddle Onward by Carol Ann Carl (Pohnpeian, Micronesia)

in my mother tongue
is a proverb worth channeling.
tuhkehn wahr tipwitipw wahr seisei
canoe trees falling, canoes paddling

the ancestral intonation
of an existential need to be in constant moving
consciousness our inner ocean
move or be moved, rise or risk drowning
…
master the ability to thread that paddle swiftly because no one is free until
we all are free and until then,
every
single
day
tuhkehn wahr tipwitipw, wahr seisei

For Aunty Hauani by Terisa Siagatonu (Samoan)

her words, my final resting place one day:
“upon the survival of the Pacific
depends the survival of the world.”
We, the biggest region on the planet.
The oldest ocean.
The heart, if this world ever had one.
How dare anyone look at a map
with Oceania sliced in half
hanging on the edges of it and say:
I know what the world looks like.
For everything that fractured us.
For my severed island,
once belonging to itself
for my chest, where Samoa is whole always…

Bioluminescence by Paul Tran (Vietnamese)
There’s a dark so deep beneath the sea the creatures beget their own
light. This feat, this fact of adaptation, I could say, is beautiful

though the creatures are hideous. Lanternfish. Hatchetfish. Viperfish.
…
We were wild. Bewildered.
Beautiful in our wilderness and wildness. In the most extreme conditions
we proved that life can exist. I exist. I am my life, I thought, approaching
at last the bottom of the sea. It wasn’t the bottom. It wasn’t the sea.

Note to Self Work by Beau Sia (Chinese-Filipino)

get there before sundown.
feed yourself only with what nurtures.
let the process of shedding be joyous in its eternity.
create and call it creation.
be a metaphor when literal is too much.
be too vibrant for lingering on those who neglect

If This Body Is a Temple by Gabrielle Langkilde (Samoan)

This body is a temple
Is what the faifeau preaches
That it must be nurtured with love
With respect and reverence
Like the place of worship that it is
But if this body is a temple
Like what the faifeau claims
Are all temples built the same?
Loved the same?
Respected, revered, and worshiped the same?

If this body is a temple
Why does it seem like ours are always the first to crumble?
The first out on the infantry line
That is both military and O-line
Both a first-class ticket to trauma
For the mind, body, and soul
If this body is a temple
Why do we pretend not to see the leaks in the roofing
Until our children are drowning in their sorrows?
Silently suffering while the choir continues to sing
Until they surrender to waves of grief

Split* by Ha‘åni Lucia Falo San Nicolas (CHamoru and Samoan)

one body, two homes: foreigners took
seas from islands, carved lines through the
fluid routes of culture and canoe, made our voyager blood
static, torn between-esias in fractions, never fully whole. a clot
thickens within my woven soil as memories of fullness ebb and
block an ocean of being from tasting shore. an ache buried
deep like umbilical cord, ritual longing seeded in fanua. it
is a border of my own design, man-made sea walls that split me in
doubt like savai‘i—but i remember the warrior woman grew from the
divide, planted promise of unification within the earth.

Frequent Flyer Program by Natalie Wee (Malaysian)

I can name any season, but the trees I love will die
where they are. That’s what it means to become a light
year, to become memory: never stay long enough
to speak belonging the way ocean pronounces the sky,
the world’s translucent lung-…

I ask the sliver beneath passages
to reveal someplace I can mistake for light.
I ask new anthems to greet me with a jaw
soft enough to hold my name.

konkani love songs in the key of my grandma in the kitchen by Jessica Mascarenhas (Indian descent)

I am grateful Mai archives songs in the back of her throat
for transcribing them to this tongue
I have no idea what it means
I sing it as if it was the first sound to escape me…

I sing both parts, forgetting this is a bridge
that is held together by two voices across a river
…
let me call out to myself
let nothing arrive but the breath

it was never about the song
it was about two voices becoming one

Almost Human by Ocean Vuong (Vietnamese)

If words, as they claimed, had no weight in our world, why did we keep sinking, Doctor—I mean Lord— why did the water swallow our almost human hands as we sang? Like this.

[Brice Montgomery · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thanks to NetGalley and Haymarket Books for the ARC!

We the Gathered Heat is an incredibly curated anthology from AAPI poets, sustained by the call-and-response energy of a great open mic night.

Edited by Franny Choi, Bao Phi, No’u Revilla, and Terisa Siagatonu, the book feels substantive without ever feeling bloated. With this many voices, the poems are unburdened by any need to “accomplish” anything; they are able to pursue themes instead of issues.

That’s not an indictment on other poetry collections, but it is a testament to the freedom afforded by this form. The vast range of personal experiences never reads as trope—Oh, this is the food poem. Yes, here’s the poem about micro-aggressions. Instead, when these topics appear, alongside all of their corresponding joys and griefs and complexities, they are situated in individual experience and secured in a community of other poems. Reading We the Gathered Heat feels like hearing a great playlist for the first time—it’s full of surprises that feel intuitive in hindsight, and it will have people writing down all the names of artists they want to look up (Note to self: read more from Na Mee and Gabrielle Langkilde). I think part of the success in creating this vibe is rooted in the editorial decision to genuinely encompass AAPI writers—not simply East Asians or Asian-Americans.

This is a book about definitional expansion, not reductionism.

In the book’s opening, the editors reckon with the impossibility of consolidating so many experiences under the simplistic label of AAPI, and this is another place where the anthology’s form shines. Most of these poems are written with orality in mind, and they are meant to be performed and shared in their immediacy. There’s a boisterousness that makes the definitional nuances of “AAPI authorship” feel like a discussion for another time.

For now, it’s enough to have so many people gathered for a momentary, meaningful community.

[Sacha · Rating 5 out of 5]

5 stars

This is an absolutely outstanding collection.

I came to this collab for Franny Choi, but I stayed for Choi AND every one of the writers who contributes here.

The anthology begins with a series of letters between the editors, and this subtle choice comes with an incredible impact. The relationships and the struggles are apparent immediately, and these brief but meaningful connections put readers immediately into the vibe of this whole collection. These works are personal and run readers through an array of emotions.

Though there are some elements of shared identity among the writers, as well as enough of a tie between their works to create logically categorized motifs, there is also so much variety in tone, experience, and purpose.

Anthologies so often come with a few highlights and many efforts that are good but not quite as memorable. That's not the case here. This is a solidly engaging group of authors and writings that kept me wanting to read more and thinking about how I'll incorporate many of these works in my classes (and how much I already love doing that with a few of the works with which I was already familiar). This is a great, not-to-be-missed compilation.

*Special thanks to NetGalley and Haymarket Books for this arc, which I received in exchange for an honest review. The opinions expressed here are my own.

[Emi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Publishing date: 17.09.2024
Thank you to Netgalley and Haymarket Books for the ARC. My opinions are my own.

The book as a meal: Hearty stew made by my grandmother
The book left me: Curious about what has been lost from oral traditions

Negatives:
Hard time connecting to the contents

Positives:
Beautiful writing from all contributors

Features:
Lots of different perspectives and experiences, poems, tiny stories, facts about different heritages

Why did I choose this one?
Poems focusing on women and culture I wish to learn more about? Sign me up

Pick-up-able? Put-down-able?
In-between. Some parts of the book were a little harder to read than others, some parts flowed easier, and some didn't hold my attention as well.

Final ranking and star rating?
3 stars, C tier. This was simply fine. I didn't connect well with all the contents, and in general I think this was targeted at a different audience. However, it was written well and beautifully. I will recommend this to people, as I think it deserves a greater audience.

[Isabella Margerin · Rating 4 out of 5]

We the Gathered Heat was a moving and timely collection of Asian American and Pacific Islander poetry, performance, and spoken word. I was lucky enough to attend a reading with some of the poets and artists at DaShop and it was beautiful to hear the words come off the page.

Some of my favorites from this collection were:
- Oral Traditions by Travis Kaululā'au Thompson & William Nu'utupu Giles
- Face Down in the Sand by Kalilinoe Detwiler
- Delta Kitos by Stephen Bor
- From Real (G)estate by Brandy Nālani McDougall
- Motherlands by Su Hwang
- Partition by Fatimah Asghar
- Half-Past King Philip by Christian Aldana
- Chanting the Waters by Craig Santos Perez
- why did he run? by Juliana Hu Pegues
- dreams of savai'i by Ryan Tito Gapelu

If you are looking to read something that heavily centers the AAPI experience and picks apart colonial constructs with vigor I would highly recommend We the Gathered Heat. As someone who does not dabble in poetry very often this was a refreshing and eye-opening collection!

[T.L. Cooper · Rating 5 out of 5]

We The Gathered Heat: Asian American and Pacific Islander Poetry, Performance, and Spoken Word edited by Fanny Choi, Bao Phi No'u Revilla, and Terisa Siagatonu is a beautifully diverse collection of poetic works that stretched the imagination and grounds the emotions. We The Gathered Heat weaves together differences and commonalities in a tapestry of humanity that serves as a reminder that both our diversity and our commonality offer us the opportunity to build a stronger society and a better world. We The Gathered Heat celebrates both the diversity and the unity of the human experience by sharing myriad voices, points of view, and cultures. Throughout the works by a wide variety of authors, the common thread of humanity never frays. We The Gathered Heat covers human experiences that feel like a trip around the world and back again often exploring the role of colonialization from the point of view of the colonized.

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

From Kalilinoe Detwiler's poem "Face Down in the Sand":
"until we relearn the ocean's song
until out lungs are soothed-by beloved's burning breath
until we remember the names of those who march
under torchlight along the far shore"

Loved this anthology!! Good mix of poets who's work I'm familiar with and unfamiliar with.
It was fun to see a high school classmates name in this anthology!! Go Isa!!

[Gogapa · Rating 5 out of 5]

shoutout to ashley sojin kim <3

poetry will forever be the bane of my existence and i understood 10% (this # is generous lol) but i thought the opening letters from the editors were especially powerful.

i also enjoyed the way the anthology was segmented, and can appreciate what it stands for.

[scriptedknight · Rating 4 out of 5]

rating: 4/5 stars
~
rtc <3

[Julia Ziegler · Rating 5 out of 5]

Best poetry anthology I’ve read. Chills from 80% of the poems.

[Nikita Ladd · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful collection - there are so so many poets in here so of course some I liked the style of more than others, but it was so well put together. The emails back and forth between the editors / collaborators at the beginning of the book are amazing. Maybe my favorite part!