ABSTRACT: This essay examines how memory provides a wide, enriching landscape for Asian immigrant poets to locate the deep dimensions of their identity and how cultural nostalgia inspires them to experiment with a variety of poetic expressions. What Asian immigrant poets regard as their cultural heritage is virtually absent from the official discourse of Western societies in which they live and, as a result, they have to rely on memory as a means to evoke their fading past and to rebuild connection with their cultural traditions. What Asian immigrant poetry exhibits is a therapeutic mode of creativity in which memory is activated by the healing power of poetry, which allows Asian immigrants to catch the dynamic energy and vitality figured in the space between their memory of the past and their efforts to build a new community. © 2016 National Association for Poetry Therapy.

Immigrant memory poetry and therapy Creativity Community Healing

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