My introduction to Theresa Hak Kyung Cha was a black and white video of a mouth forming inaudible words over bird song and bubbling water, coming through a screen of white-static. A spirit. A premonition. Something unsettling. It reminded me of the ghost stories my mom used to tell me – that she still believes, and that I don’t deny. Growing up Asian in America, there was always the touch of the supernatural, a world of benevolent ghosts, but also of ghosts that punish and ha

Greetings from the BACKWORDS Team! Your curators, Jenny M Chu, Phillip Trey Coates, and Matthew D Kulisch are humbled and honored by the support we received Wednesday, April 29 at the BACKWORDS Press Release & Launch Party for our inaugural issue. Over 90 people from the Portland art and literary community, from out of state, from education and nonprofit organizations—and plenty of joining friends and family—came to support our first issue and learn about the future of the

Tonight, at the lucky hour of 7 p.m. we’ll officially launch BACKWORDS Press and release our inaugural issue featuring our three writers: Elaina Ellis, Ocean Vuong, and Kevin Sampsell. As we scramble with all the pre-event setup, we’re also imagining the future. It was dreaming that got us here, and it will be dreaming that will keep this press innovative, engaging, ever-evolving, and supportive of our non-lit and lit-communities alike. We wanted to share with you our thought

Jenny M. Chu grew up in Oregon and received her Master of Fine Arts in Writing from the University of San Francisco. Her creative work has been featured in The Ignatian, The Molotov Cocktail, VoiceCatcher, and MReview. Her current preoccupations can be found on BACKWORDS Blog. Words to live by: it’s impossible to know everything about everything, but you still have to try. In work, she’s focused on several equity projects, collaborations, and conversations. In art, she seeks

Of neither Sea, nor Shore, nor Air, nor Fire, But all these in their pregnant causes mixt Confus'dly, and which thus must ever fight, Unless th' Almighty Maker them ordain His dark materials to create more Worlds —Paradise Lost, Book 2, lines 912-916 Much has been said, all deserved, about the lyric and character of poet, Ocean Vuong. In 2013, Monkeybicycle called his chapbook, No (2013), published by YesYes Books, “absolutely gorgeous,” a haunting collection of poetry th

This month of April, to celebrate the launch of our press and coinciding with Poetry Month, we at BACKWORDS would like to honor each of our writers from our inaugural printing. First up is the eloquent Elaina Ellis. Her bio, while impressive, cannot fully capture the presence she brings when performing her work. She is simultaneously an accomplished editor and poet. Ellis currently resides in the Seattle area of Washington, and brings true beauty to the words she forms and th

Matthew D. Kulisch: The Idea I’m not certain which day it was specifically, only that it came to me on a Wednesday in grad school. And I’m not certain which discussion we were in the midst of, only that the indomitable, quiet, and assured Norma Cole—poet and teacher—was the one leading it. We were talking, vaguely, about influence, diving through a pile of related texts (most of them new to us), when Norma gave her harshest imperative of the whole term: a light rap of book-sp

Surface : Context curator: Jenny M. Chu Context is everything. I’ve heard this. You’ve heard this. And context probably isn’teverything, but it’s certainly in the composition. Sometimes a glint, sometimes luminous. It wasn’t until I was in a painting class that I realized what “context” actually meant. It happened on a night when the instructor decided to start the workshop by projecting slides of paintings. The slideshow consisted of some renaissance and some baroque, some i