"Tempest in a Teapot" Asian American Poets Reading—with Jeffery Paul Chan and Al Robles, Lou Syquia, George Leong, Lane Nishikawa, Janice Mirikitani, Alan Chong Lau, Laureen Mar, Garrett Hongo: May 16, 1977

Jeffery Chan introduces the program, then each of the eight poets in succession:

Al Robles reads two poems, "Odes to Bill Sorro" and "Manilatown Blues (for Blues Poets)," then, with Oscar Peñaranda invited onstage to read the Tagalog, the final pages of a bilingual story, "kind of a children's book," that he credits to "Tagatac, who used to work here.... He was stoned on visions."

Lou Siquia reads "Cannery Life," based in his experience as a cannery worker in Alaska, "Pan-Asian Holiday Tour," and "A Poem for a Brother."

George Leong reads "Antelope Killers (for the Antelope People)," based on an incident where guards open fire on inmates at High Desert State Prison, in Susanville, CA; "To the Supremest, Betty Carter," "Rice," "Memoirs," and "Belly Talk" (from the soon to appear book, We Won't Move: Poems and Photographs of the International Hotel Struggle, Asian American Writers Workshop/Kearney Street Workshop, 1977). Note: many resources on the I-Hotel struggle are available at The Freedom Archives website.

Lane Nishikawa, just returned from the annual pilgrimage to Manzanar (site of one of the WWII concentration camps where Americans of Japanese descent were incarcerated), reads a poem he's still working on, titled "Manzanar," then reads "The Bigot," "No-No Boy (for John Okada)" and "Obachan."

Janice Mirikitani invites the audience to "stand up, rest what you've been sitting on," then reads a poem she says came to her after seeing Ōshima's In the Realm of the Senses, "Loving, from Vietnam to Zimbabwe," followed by a short story, based on one of her aunt's stories, titled "The Winner."

Alan Lau, noting the time is running short and there are others yet to follow him, reads two poems: "A View from the Inside" and "Talking Back to Buddha," the latter a poem in five parts.

Laureen Mar, who notes her last reading, for Kearney Street Project at City College San Francisco, included more women writers than men, and that the women all read poems for their mothers, reads "To My Mother, Who Fears for Me," "Digging Clams," "Starfish," "Chinatown" (in two parts), "My Mother, Who Came from China, Where She Never Saw Snow," and a short story titled "A Woman Running."

Garrett Hongo closes the program, reading his poems "Gardena," "The Hongo Store," "Midnight in Tokyo," "Poem for Alan Lau," "Rabbit," and "Oracle."