Kenji Liu Poetry Chapbook Release

Join Kenji Liu and guest poets to celebrate the release of his debut poetry chapbook, You Left Without Your Shoes (Finishing Line Press).

Kenji will read from his chapbook as well as new poems at Modern Times Bookstore, SF with special guests:

• Aimee Suzara
• Vickie Vértiz
• Alice Tong

Copies of the chapbook will be available for purchase and signing. Come celebrate!!!

In this debut Kenji Liu explores the interweavings of migration, love, memory and mourning in an autobiography of poems spanning four years. Beginning with the untimely death of his mother, this collection contemplates the difficult task of transforming one's relationship with the dead and the renewal of life that can accompany it.

Praise for You Left Without Your Shoes:

“From the shreds of grief and displacement, Kenji Liu has woven whole cloth. These are exquisite poems, sculpted and flowing, the lines meant to be caressed by the reader’s eyes, the words read aloud for the ears. You don’t have to try to remember this poet’s name – Kenji Liu will, without a doubt, in time establish himself as one of our major American poets.”

~ Patricia Y. Ikeda, featured in the award-winning documentary film, Between the Lines: Asian American Women's Poetry

“Beautiful seems too cliche a word for these poems that are original and effused with love, and memory and loss and ties that link one generation to the next regardless of time and circumstance. Kenji Liu artfully opens up your heart with these lucid poems.”

~ Opal Palmer Adisa, latest collection, I Name Me Name

“In You Left Without Your Shoes, Kenji Liu engages and entangles his reader in a conversation, a testament, an ocean, a desert of memory, a flight, a witness towards the survival of loss and what lies beyond. These multi-layered poems, tender and resilient, fly towards the possible.”

~ Ching-In Chen, author of The Heart's Traffic

About the artists:

Kenji Liu is a 1.5 generation Japanese-born Taiwanese American expatriate of New Jersey suburbia. Arising from his work as an activist, educator and cultural worker, his writing explores the politics of identity, migration, race, gender, memory, history, mourning, joy and everyday small occurrences. Kenji’s poetry chapbook, You Left Without Your Shoes, was published by Finishing Line Press (2009). His writing has also appeared in Tea Party Magazine, Kartika Review, and the 2009 Intergenerational Writer’s Workshop online anthology called Flick of My Tongue. He is currently working on a multi-genre full-length collection of poetry, prose and visual art.

Based in Oakland, Aimee Suzara is a Filipino-American writer/performer, cultural worker and educator who has been writing and performing spoken word, poetry, and theatre incorporating movement since 1999. Her play, Pagbabalik (“Return”), was awarded the Zellerbach Community Arts Grant in 2006 and 2007, and she has been published in the NAACP-nominated Check the Rhyme: An Anthology of Female Poets and Emcees (Lit Noire, 2007). Her poetry chapbook, the space between, was published by Finishing Line Press in 2008. Suzara has shared her passion for the intersection of arts, literacy and education by teaching at Las Positas, Laney College, City College San Francisco, and Kearny Street Workshop.

Alice Tong is a singer, songwriter, artist, activist, social worker, 2nd generation Chinese-Taiwanese-American. Alice has a BA in Ethnomusicology and a Masters in Social Work. Her musical style ranges from such categories as folk rock, indie rock, soul, and jazz. Her music has been in independent films, including “American Fusion” which won the Audience Award at the Hawaii International Film Festival. Alice’s album “Small” can be bought on iTunes, Amazon, or www.blacklava.net. She now lives in San Francisco where she gets obsessed with her dogs and makes and performs more music. For more about Alice, check out www.myspace.com/alicetongmusic.

Vickie Vértiz is a writer from Los Angeles with roots in poetry, working in fiction and playwrighting. Vickie's work can be found in Mujeres de Maiz Zine and in I Saw My Ex at a Party: Traversing the Literary Unexpected (Kearny Street Press), the 2008 Intergenerational Writers' Workshop Anthology. She lives in San Francisco.