Karen An-hwei Lee

Poet

Author's Bio

Karen An-hwei Lee is the author of the poetry collections, The Beautiful Immunity (Tupelo 2024), Duress (Cascade 2022), Rose is a Verb: Neo-Georgics (W&S/Slant 2021), Phyla of Joy (Tupelo 2012), Ardor (Tupelo 2008), a July Open selection, and In Medias Res (Sarabande 2004), winner of the Kathryn A. Morton Prize selected by Heather McHugh and the Norma Farber First Book Award chosen by Cole Swensen for the Poetry Society of America. She authored three novels, Sonata in K (Ellipsis 2017), The Maze of Transparencies (Ellipsis 2019), and Love Chronicles of the Octopodes (Ellipsis 2023). Her translations of Li Qingzhao's writings are collected in a single volume, Doubled Radiance: Poetry & Prose of Li Qingzhao (Singing Bone 2018). Lee also wrote two chapbooks, God’s One Hundred Promises, winner of the Swan Scythe Press Prize awarded by Sandra McPherson in 2002, and What the Sea Earns for a Living (Quaci Press 2014). A book of literary criticism, Anglophone Literatures in the Asian Diaspora (Cambria 2013), appears in the Cambria Sinophone World Series edited by Victor H. Mair, Chair of East Asian Languages & Civilizations at the University of Pennsylvania. Karen Lee has presented readings at the Japanese American National Museum, Holloway Poetry Series at U. C. Berkeley, the Program in Literary Arts at Brown University, the Lincoln Center in New York City, Seattle Town Hall, the Casa Romantica Reading Series in San Clemente, California, the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, the Orange Book Festival, Fall for the Book at George Mason University, and the Hugh C. Hyde Living Writers Series at San Diego State University. She has worked as a florist's assistant, mended books in a rare-book archive, grown cell cultures in a medical lab, read to children in a family literacy program, and taught music lessons as occupational therapy for mental health patients. A former writing resident at MacDowell Colony of the Arts and the Millay Arts Colony, she previously served as Full Professor of English and Chair at a liberal arts college in greater Los Angeles. She holds an M.F.A. from the Program in Literary Arts at Brown University and a Ph.D. in British & American Literature from the University of California, Berkeley. Lee has taught in the low-residency M.F.A. Program at Seattle Pacific University and served in the administration at Point Loma Nazarene University. Currently, she is the provost at Wheaton College in Illinois.

Publications & Prizes

Anthologies:
Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and Writing by Dana Gioia and X.J. Kennedy (Pearson Education, 2019)
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Best Spiritual Writing 2012 (Penguin, 2012)
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Nahualliandoing Dos: An Anthology in Nahuatl, Español and English (Aztlan Libre Press, 2012)
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The Arcadia Project: Postmodern Pastoral (Ahsahta Press, 2012)
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Poets of the American West (Many Voices Press, 2010)
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Transnational Women Warriors: From Asia to Asian America (McFarland Press , 2010)
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Yellow as Turmeric, Fragrant as Cloves: Asian American Women Poets (Deep Bowl Press, 2009)
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In Pieces: An Anthology of Fragmentary Writings (Impassio Press, 2006)
Books:
Maze of Transparencies (Ellipsis Press, 2019)
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Sonata in K (Ellipsis Press, 2017)
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Anglophone Literatures in the Asian Diaspora (Cambria Press, 2013)
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Phyla of Joy (Tupelo Press, 2012)
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Ardor (Tupelo Press, 2008)
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In Medias Res (Sarabande Books, 2004)
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God's One Hundred Promises (Swan Scythe Press, 2002)
Chapbooks:
What the Sea Earns for a Living (Quaci Press, 2014)
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God's One Hundred Promises (Swan Scythe Press, 2002)
Journals:
American Literary Review
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American Poet
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Asheville Poetry Review
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Columbia Poetry Review
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Crab Orchard Review
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Fifth Wednesday Journal
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Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies
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Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion
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Kenyon Review
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Melusine: Woman in the 21st Century
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Meridians: feminism, race, transnationalism
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Poetry Magazine
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Poetry Salzburg Review
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Puerto del Sol
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Sojourn
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Spoon River Poetry Review
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The Prose Poem
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Yale Review
Prizes won: 

NEA Literature Grant (National Endowment for the Arts) Kathryn A. Morton Prize (Sarabande Books) Norma Farber First Book Award (Poetry Society of America) Glenna Luschei Prairie Schooner Award (University of Nebraska) Eisner Prize (University of California, Berkeley) John Hawkes Prize (Brown University)

Personal Favorites

What I'm reading now: 
Spaces between Birds by Sandra McPherson, Book of Life by Alicia Ostriker, World without End by Claude Wilkinson, Senegal Taxi by Juan Felipe Herrera, The New Black by Evie Shockley, The Earliest Witnesses by GC Waldrep

More Information

Gives readings: 
Yes
Travels for readings: 
Yes
Identifies as: 
Asian American
Born in: 
Boston
Please note: All information in the Directory is provided by the listed writers or their representatives.
Last update: May 14, 2024