Hawaii Poet Wins Inaugural Asian American Poetry Prize

Kundiman, the Asian American poets organization, announced the winner of its first annual book prize this weekend. Janine Oshiro, a graduate of the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop now teaching in Hawaii, won the two-thousand-dollar award for her manuscript "Pier," which will be published by Alice James Books. Oshiro, who has participated in Kundiman's annual writing retreat, will also be featured in a reading in New York City, where the organization is based.

The finalists for the prize, which was open to published and unpublished Asian American poets living in the United States, are Serena Chopra, April Naoko Heck, Kirun Kapur, Caroline Kim-Brown, Michelle Young-Mee Rhee, Ira Sukrungruang, R. A. Villanueva, Shawn Wen, and Lynn Xu.

Information about next year's prize will be available this fall in our Grants & Awards database, and on the Kundiman Web site.