Episode 18: Kenji C. Liu

Kenji C. Liu reads "Ah Kung in the Philippines, 1945" from Issue 59 of The Collagist. He also discusses the inspiration for this poem and recommends "Battle at Biak, New Guinea" by April Naoko Heck in Issue 57.

You can also watch the video version of Liu's poem here:

Kenji C. Liu is a 1.5-generation immigrant from New Jersey living in Southern California. A Pushcart Prize nominee and first runner-up finalist for the Poets & Writers 2013 California Writers Exchange Award, his writing is in or forthcoming in Los Angeles Review, Barrow Street Journal, CURA: A Literary Magazine of Art and Action, The Baltimore Review, RHINO Poetry, Best American Poetry's blog, and many others. His poetry chapbookYou Left Without Your Shoes was nominated for a 2009 California Book Award. A three-time VONA alum and recipient of a Djerassi Resident Artist Program fellowship, he holds an MA in Cultural Anthropology and Social Transformation.

Episode 15: The Collagist Podcast - Geffrey Davis

Geffrey Davis  reads "What My Father Might Say, If I Let Him Speak" from Issue 53 of The Collagist. He also discusses the inspiration of his poem and recommends the Organic Weapons! Arts spotlight in Issue 57, particularly Rachel McKibbens' poems, "Mammoth," "Giants," and "Rochester, NY" from her new chapbook, Mammoth.

Geffrey Davis holds degrees from Oregon State University and Penn State University. He is the author of Revising the Storm (BOA Editions, 2014), winner of the A. Poulin, Jr. Poetry Prize. Other awards include the Anne Halley Poetry Prize, the Dogwood Prize in Poetry, the Wabash Prize for Poetry, the Leonard Steinberg Memorial/Academy of American Poets Prize, nominations for the Pushcart, and fellowships from the Cave Canem Foundation and Penn State's Institute for the Arts and Humanities. 

Recent poems have appeared in Crazyhorse, Green Mountains Review, The Greensboro Review, Hayden's Ferry Review, The Massachusetts Review, Mississippi Review, Nimrod, [PANK], Sycamore Review, and elsewhere, and have been reprinted at The Feminist Wire and Verse Daily. Part of his work as a literary citizen involves promoting the work of others. To this end—a former editor and founding member—he serves on the board of directors for Toe Good Poetry. 

Davis grew up in Tacoma, WA. He joins the MFA faculty at The University of Arkansas.

Episode 14: The Collagist Podcast - Mai Der Vang

Mai Der Vang reads "When the Mountains Rose Beneath Us, We Became the Valley" from Issue 51 of The Collagist. She also discusses the inspiration of her poems and recommends "What My Father Might Say, If I Let Him Speak" by Geffrey Davis from Issue 53 and the classic "Those Winter Sundays" by Robert Hayden.

Mai Der Vang’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Missouri Review Online, The Collagist, Weave Magazine, Red Branch, The Boiler,The Lantern Review, and Troubling Borders: An Anthology of Art and Literature by Southeast Asian Women in the Diaspora, among others. As an editorial member of the Hmong American Writers’ Circle, Mai Der served as co-editor of How Do I Begin: A Hmong American Literary Anthology. She is an MFA candidate in poetry at Columbia University, a Kundiman fellow, and has completed residencies at Hedgebrook.

Episode 13: The Collagist Podcast - Kendra DeColo

Kendra DeColo reads "The Vocalist" and "I Heart Pussy" from Issue 42. She also discusses the inspiration of her poems and recommends "Man Hanging Upside Down" by Patrick Rosal from Issue 7.

Kendra DeColo is the author of Thieves in the Afterlife (Saturnalia Books, 2014), selected by Yusef Komunyakaa for the 2013 Saturnalia Books Poetry Prize. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming inSouthern Indiana Review, The Collagist, CALYX, Muzzle Magazine,and elsewhere. She is the recipient of an Individual Artist Fellowship from the Tennessee Arts Commission, a work-study scholarship from the Bread Loaf Writer’s Conference, and residencies from the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts and the Millay Colony. The founding poetry editor of Nashville Review and a Book Review Editor at Muzzle Magazine, she lives in Nashville, Tennessee.