The Ann Arbor District Library, Fifth Avenue Studios, and 1473 are proud to present The Coolidge-Wagner Anthology of Recorded Poetry. This series was created to celebrate and document the art of poetry in recorded form. Featuring poets from Ann Arbor, metro Detroit, and beyond, we hope this series showcases and archives the incredible poetry scene here in Ann Arbor, metro Detroit, and beyond.
Created by Chien-An Yuan—photographer, designer, musician, and the definition of a multi-disciplinary artist—as a way to capture the magic of spoken word poetry recordings and showcase some of the amazing talent in the Ann Arbor area. Chien-An is also the founder of the experimental 1473 record label, which specializes in improvisation, electronics, and collaboration.
The Coolidge-Wagner Anthology of Recorded Poetry is named after and dedicated to two of Chien-An's high school teachers, Judi Coolidge and Tom Wagner of Bay High School in Ohio, who encouraged in him, as well as thousands of their other students, a lifelong appreciation and open-minded love of the arts.
Interested in submitting your poetry to the anthology? Please e-mail Chien-An Yuan at chienanyuan@gmail.com.
About the Cover Artist
Shannon Rae Daniels is a Cantonese American visual artist and writer whose recent work has explored questions of impermanence, goodness, and beauty as they relate to the self and to communities at large — particularly American Chinatowns, which she is deeply invested in as someone with strong roots in New York City’s Chinatown. In 2023, she was selected for the Emerging Artists Program hosted by The Guild of Artists and Artisans in Ann Arbor, Michigan and then was chosen by a jury to show and sell her work at the Ann Arbor Summer Art Fair. She has taught arts and humanities classes at The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Boston Arts Academy. She was born and raised in New York City and currently lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
Listen to The Coolidge-Wagner Anthology of Recorded Poetry in AADL's Catalog
Volume 1: Kyunghee Kim
"Poetry is prayer and perhaps that is how I stumbled on the art of reading and writing them. These words I hope are meditations on what becomes of grief over time, space, and memory. It encourages us to seek where does love begin and grief end? This is a small collection that is part of a larger collection in the works." - Kyunghee Kim
Volume 2: Zilka Joseph
"I have lived many lives, I often say, and that is true of all my work. My books, my poems, my prose, express aspects of my background, geographies, histories, cultures, religions, mythologies, cuisines, and are journeys in time and space. Drawing deeply from my life in India, my Bene Israel (Indian Jewish) roots, my experiences in the US, immigration and displacement, racism and colonialism, death and loss, Nature, birds and animals, each book focuses on different, and yet related themes, weaving complex tapestries with imagery and fragmented as well as linear narratives. In this audio collection, I read poems from several books to create a medley and offer a wider perspective on my life’s work. " - Zilka Joseph
Volume 3: Chace Morris
"I believe in the magic and spellwork and offense of the poem. Like, going on the offensive. And I think these poems, delivered in this order, comprise a long-form spell. Poems are often positioned as defensive--healing and holding, a response to, an interpretation and reclaiming of. But I think writers like June Jordan, Sonia Sanchez, Amiri Baraka, and Saul Williams write like swinging on a face sometimes, making the system put its hands up for once. Observing, reporting, emotionally excavating injustice, yes, but also being able to go on the offensive, hexing what harms and blessing what builds. And in this time, after this last election, with much on the line, I’m trying to write good magic and step-the-hell-back for my kinfolk." - Chace Morris
Volume 4: Sherina Rodriguez Sharpe
"Decolonizing is an incredibly intimate act. These poems move through self-definition and mirror work to find joy and liberation." - Sherina Rodriguez Sharpe
Volume 5: Emily Nick Howard
"These poems are meditations on ancestry and descent. They start with my more recent ancestors and move back in time through assimilation and colonization, back to home, far, far back through my ancestors across species to the beginning of life. Then they move forward again with a new understanding of what ancestry means, coming through the present to the future into a vision of interconnectedness, joy, sorrow, and love." - Emily Nick Howard
Volume 6: Bryan Thao Worra
"These particular poems are from his new collection American Laodyssey (Sahtu Press, 2025) that features many of his most noteworthy pieces from the last 3 decades that appeared in global anthologies, newspapers and journals, exhibits, and other distinctions. This set addresses many of his concerns that emerged from a journey spent recovering the lost histories and stories from the US Secret War in Laos in the 20th century, and how we probe memory and dream, loss and opportunity in diaspora. What is the role of the imagination as a community makes a transition from centuries of a monarchy to a democracy? What happens to our innermost fantasies and hopes as refugees and immigrants?" - Bryan Thao Worra
Volume 7: Frances Kai-Hwa Wang
"When I was on my high school’s speech and debate team, I read Time, Newsweek, and U.S. News every week. I came across an article about how Asian Americans were good at math and science but were not good leaders. I believed it without question because I thought that if it was published, it had to be true.
My father simply said, “China has a 4,000 year history — who do you think was leading it?”
I suddenly realized that because I come from a different background, there are things that I can see, connections that I can make, stories that I can tell that others cannot. Slowly, I came to trust the questions that only I was asking.
Over time, I realized that because I am privileged to be educated, English speaking, and a U.S. citizen, I should use my privilege to speak up for others. I push back because I can, because someone has to. I write the stories that no one else is writing. And I always stop to translate for lost Chinese grandmas.
I am one of a handful of writers who has been writing consistently for and about Asian American, Pacific Islander, and Arab American diasporic communities for over twenty years. I have written as a journalist, essayist, and prose poet. My next project is a book called, “Writing to Save the World.”
In these political times, especially with the new Republican administration, the war in Gaza, and increasing anti-immigrant hate and violence, we must find commonalities and ways to better understand each other. Through writing and creating art, we can change hearts, lift up communities, and move people to action." - Frances Kai-Hwa Wang
Volume 8: Owólabi Aboyade
"Mourning is an inconvenient life-giving necessity. It is painful, yet oh so important, to mourn, to allow your world to break with recognition of what has moved along, what has been loved and lost. Even as the world seems to go on as if nothing has happened. My poetry hopes to open a space for healing within these cracks in so-called normality. You’ll find here speculative worlds, surrealism, musicality, metaphysics. I hope that my attempts to poem the vulnerability I need gives you something valuable also." - Owólabi Aboyade
