Kimiko Hahn (born July 5, 1955) is an American poet and distinguished professor in the MFA program of Queens College, CUNY."Kimiko Hahn" MFA Program at CUNY Queens Her works frequently deal with the reinvention of poetic forms and the intersecting of conflicting identities."Kimiko Hahn." Poets.org
In 2025, The New York State Writers Institute announced that Kimiko Hahn was named New York State Poet and would serve a two-year term as Poet Laureate. "NYS Writers Institute announces New York State Author and New York State Poet"
Biography Hahn was born in Mount Kisco, New York, on July 5, 1955. Her parents are both artists. Her mother, Maude Miyako Hamai, was a Japanese American from Maui, Hawaii; her father, Walter Hahn, was a German American from Wisconsin."Kimiko Hahn." MFA Program at Queens College CUNY They met in Chicago, where Walter was a friend of the notable African American author Ralph Ellison."Kimiko Hahn." enotes Her sister is Tomie Hahn, a performer and ethnologist.Kimiko Hahn Poetry
Hahn grew up in Pleasantville, New York,Zhou Xiaojing. "Kimiko Hahn (1955- ).Asian-American Poets: A Bio-Bibliographical Critical Sourcebook. Eds. Huang, Guiyou and Emmanuel Sampath Nelson. Greenwood Publishing Group. 2002. 113-9 and between 1964 and 1965, the Hahns later lived in Tokyo, Japan."Kimiko Hahn." enotes As a teen, she became involved in the New York City Asian American movement of the 1970s. Zhou Xiaojing has commented that her racially mixed background influenced "her profound understanding of the politics of the body" as seen in her poetry (113). In the U.S., her Asian appearance made some schoolmates "called her Chinese or Japanese, never regarding her as an American like them. Yet when she went to Japan … her schoolmates [there] called her American or 'gaijin'" (113).Zhou Xiaojing. "Kimiko Hahn (1955- ).Asian-American Poets: A Bio-Bibliographical Critical Sourcebook. Eds. Huang, Guiyou and Emmanuel Sampath Nelson. Greenwood Publishing Group. 2002. 113-9
Hahn received a bachelor's degree in English and East Asian Studies from the University of Iowa and an M.A. in Japanese Literature from Columbia University. She is a distinguished professor at Queens College, CUNY and has also taught at New York University, Sarah Lawrence College, and University of Houston."From The Narrow Road to the Interior by Kimiko Hahn," Reading Between A&B
Hahn has two daughters, Miyako Tess (b. 1987) and Reiko Lily (b. 1990), from her second marriage to Ted Hannan."Kimiko Hahn." enotes. She has been married to true crime writer Harold Schechter since 2002.
Poetry works The major themes of Hahn's poetry explores Asian American female desire and subjectivity. "Kimiko Hahn (b.1955)" The Heath Anthology of American Literature, 5th Edition, Paul Lautner, General Editor. Cengage, 2005 The judges' citation from the Pen/Voelcker Award noted: "With wild courage Kimiko Hahn's poems voyage fearlessly into explorations of love, sexuality, motherhood, violence, and grief and the way gender inscribes us."
Her poetry draws from feminist works of Hélène Cixous, Luce Irigaray, and Adrienne Rich, more canonical American poets such as T.S. Eliot and William Carlos Williams poetic experimentations, as well as Japanese culture and literature.Zhou Xiaojing. "Kimiko Hahn (1955- ).Asian-American Poets: A Bio-Bibliographical Critical Sourcebook. Eds. Huang, Guiyou and Emmanuel Sampath Nelson. Greenwood Publishing Group. 2002. 113-9 The title of The Narrow Road to the Interior (W.W. Norton, 2006), for instance, is drawn from Bashō's Oku no Hosomichi."From The Narrow Road to the Interior by Kimiko Hahn," Reading Between A&B In an interview with Laurie Sheck for Bomb, Hahn discussed how she combines a variety of genres in her work, including Japanese forms, such as zuihitsu in her poetry collection, The Narrow Road to the Interior: "The Japanese view [zuihitsu] as a distinct genre, although its elements are difficult to pin down. There's no Western equivalent, though some people might wish to categorize it as a prose poem or an essay. You mentioned some of its characteristics: a kind of randomness that is not really random, but a feeling of randomness; a pointed subjectivity that we don't normally associate with the essay. The zuihitsu can also resemble other Western forms: lists, journals. I've added emails to the mix. Fake emails....The technique of collage is really compelling to me. Letter writing, diary form—real and invented—I like to use within the zuihitsu itself.""Kimiko Hahn, Interview." By Laurie Sheck. Bomb 96 (Summer 2006)
Her poems were first published in We Stand Our Ground: Three Women, Their Vision, Their Poems, which she co-created with Gale Jackson and Susan Sherman.Zhou Xiaojing. "Kimiko Hahn (1955- ).Asian-American Poets: A Bio-Bibliographical Critical Sourcebook. Eds. Huang, Guiyou and Emmanuel Sampath Nelson. Greenwood Publishing Group. 2002. 113-9 Since then, she has authored multiple collections of poetry, including Toxic Flora (2010), The Narrow Road to the Interior (2006), The Artist's Daughter (2002), Mosquito and Ant (1999), Volatile (1998), The Unbearable Heart (1995), and Earshot (1992).
The latter, Earshot, received the Theodore Roethke Memorial Poetry Prize and an Association of Asian American Studies Literature Award. In 1996, her poem "Possession: A Zuihitsu" (originally published in Another Chicago Magazine) was included in the anthology the Best American Poetry, and The Unbearable Heart received an American Book Award. Other honors for her work include the Lila Wallace–Reader's Digest Writer's Award, the Shelley Memorial Prize, and the PEN/Voelcker Award. In 2023, Hahn received the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize for lifetime achievement. She has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, Guggenheim Foundation, and the New York Foundation for the Arts."Kimiko Hahn." MFA Program at Queens College, CUNY
Aside from poetry, Hahn has written for film such as the 1995 two-hour HBO special, Ain't Nuthin' But a She-Thing (for which she also recorded the voice-overs); and most recently, a text for Everywhere at Once, Holly Fisher's film based on Peter Lindbergh's still photos and narrated by Jeanne Moreau. The latter premiered at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival and presented at the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival."Everywhere At Once (2008). IMDB
Bibliography
Poetry Air Pocket. Hanging Loose Press, 1989. Earshot. Hanging Loose Press, 1992. The Unbearable Heart. Kaya Press, 1995.
Volatile. Hanging Loose Press, 1999. Pine. 1999 Mosquito and Ant: Poems. W.W. Norton, 1999. The Artist's Daughter: Poems W.W. Norton, 2002. The Narrow Road to the Interior: Poems. W.W. Norton, 2006. "A Field Guide to the Intractable: Zuihitsu." Small Anchor Press chapbook, 2009. Toxic Flora: Poems. W.W. Norton, 2010.
Brain Fever: Poems. W.W. Norton, 2014. "Brain Fever" W.W. Norton (Write It!) Wells College Press, 2019. Foreign Bodies: Poems. W. W. Norton, 2020. The Ghost Forest: New and Selected Poems. W. W. Norton, 2024.
Selected broadsides Walt Whitman Circle. 2015. 3/3: Volume 1, Issue 1. with Lauren Henken. 2013. With Gale Jackson and Susan Sherman We Stand Our Ground: Three Women, Their Vision, Their Poems. Ikon, Inc., 1988.
Prose "Memory, Language, and Desire." Asian Americans: Collages of Identities: Proceedings of Cornell Symposium of Asian America, Issues of Identity. Ed. Lee C. Lee. Cornell University Press, 1992. 64–69. OCLC 34909762 "Afterbirth." Charlie Chan Is Dead: An Anthology of Contemporary Asian American Fiction. Ed. and intro. Jessica Hagedorn. Penguin Books, 1993.
Interviews "Kimiko Hahn: Expressing Self and Desire, Even If One Must Writhe." By Eileen Tabios. Black Lightning: Poetry-In-Progress. New York: Asian American Writers' Workshop. 1998. "Kimiko Hahn ." By Laurie Sheck. Bomb 96 (Summer 2006)"Kimiko Hahn, Interview." By Laurie Sheck. Bomb 96 (Summer 2006)
Awards Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize 1996 American Book Award 2008 PEN/Voelcker Award for Poetry Association of Asian America Studies Literature Award Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Award Theodore Roethke Memorial Poetry Prize Shelley Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America The National Endowment for the Arts fellowships N.Y. Foundation for the Arts fellowships 2010 Guggenheim Fellow
See also
List of Asian American writers
References
Critical studies Kimiko Hahn's 'Interlingual Poetics' in Mosquito and Ant By: Grotjohn, Robert. pp. 219–34 IN: Lim, Shirley Geok-lin (ed.); Gamber, John Blair (ed.); Sohn, Stephen Hong (ed.); Valentino, Gina (ed.); Transnational Asian American Literature: Sites and Transits. Philadelphia, PA: Temple UP; 2006. viii, 306 pp. (book article) Two Hat Softeners 'In the Trade Confession': John Yau and Kimiko Hahn By: Zhou, Xiaojing. pp. 168–89 IN: Zhou, Xiaojing (ed. and introd.); Najmi, Samina (ed.); Form and Transformation in Asian American Literature. Seattle, WA: U of Washington P; 2005. 296 pp. (book article) 'I Cannot Find Her': The Oriental Feminine, Racial Melancholia, and Kimiko Hahn's The Unbearable Heart By: Chang, Juliana; Meridians: Feminism, Race, Transnationalism, 2004; 4 (2): 239–60. (journal article) Mixing Aesthetics. A Poet's Cityscape: Kimiko Hahn By: Schlote, Christiane. pp. 541–59 IN: Alonso Gallo, Laura P. (ed. and introd.); Voces de América/American Voices: Entrevistas a escritores americanos/Interviews with American Writers. Cádiz, Spain: Aduana Vieja; 2004. 730 pp. (book article) Pulse and Impulse: The Zuihitsu By: Hahn, Kimiko. pp. 75–82 IN: Dienstfrey, Patricia (ed.); Hillman, Brenda (ed.); DuPlessis, Rachel Blau (foreword); The Grand Permission: New Writings on Poetics and Motherhood. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan UP; 2003. xxvi, 278 pp. (book article) Luce Irigaray's Choreography with Sex and Race By: Mori, Kaori; Dissertation Abstracts International, Section A: The Humanities and Social Sciences, 2002 July; 63 (1): 189. State U of New York, Buffalo, 2002. (dissertation abstract) To Adore a Fragment: An Interview with Kimiko Hahn By: Kalamaras, George; Bloomsbury Review, 1999 Mar-Apr; 19 (2): 13-14. (journal article) Breaking from Tradition: Experimental Poems by Four Contemporary Asian American Women Poets By: Xiaojing, Zhou; Revista Canaria de Estudios Ingleses, 1998 Nov; 37: 199-218. (journal article) Huang, Guiyou and Emmanuel Sampath Nelson, eds. Asian-American Poets: A Bio-Bibliographical Critical Sourcebook. Greenwood Publishing Group. 2002. 113-9. Hara, Marie and Nora Okja Keller, eds. Intersecting Circles: The Voices of Hapa Women in Poetry and Prose. Baboo Ridge Press, 1999 Wallinger-Schorn, Brigitte."Appendix: Interviews: Interviews with Kimiko Hahn." "So There it Is": An Exploration of Cultural Hybridity in Contemporary Asian American Poetry. Rodopi, 2011. 249-291.
External links Audio: Kimiko Hahn reads "Sparrow" from the book The Narrow Road to the Interior Audio: Kimiko Hahn reads "Cope's Rule" from the book Toxic Flora Heath Anthology author site Kimiko Hahn in conversation with Emily Moore at Loggernaut. Fall 2006. Kimiko Hahn interviewed by Laurie Sheck: BOMB Magazine The Poetry of Science Interview in the New York Times TierneyLab Blog, July 14, 2009. "Kimiko Hahn." The Poetry Center at Smith College "From The Narrow Road to the Interior by Kimiko Hahn," Reading Between A&B "A Conversation with Kimiko Hahn." Interviewed by Wendy Chin-Tanner. Lantern Review Blog: Asian American Poetry Unbounded. 19 December 2011
Poems online "The Waiting Room," "Residue of God," atlengthmag "Alba", "Allure", "Awareness", and "My Very Exciting Magic Carpet Just Sailed Under Nine Palace Elephants," Cerise Press 1.3 (Spring 2010) “Raptor,” “The Apiculturalist," Kenyon Review “Just Walk Away Renee,” “A Meditation on Magnetic Fields,” Clementine Magazine ”Phantosmia,” “Sedna,” “The Soul,” Storyscape Online Journal 4 October 2009 "Cope's Rule," "Nepenthe," "Magpie Lark," PEN 2008