James Penha's Pages
At universities and in secondary schools, in the United States and in Asia, in administration and in the classroom, James Penha has had a fifty-year career as an educator whose enthusiasm for learning and language inspires students and colleagues. His papers on teaching have been widely presented. A New Yorker living in Indonesia, Penha has published hundreds of poems, stories, and articles throughout these same five decades, and presently he also edits The New Verse News, a website for current-events poetry.
James Penha's Poets & Writers Page
James Penha's Amazon Page
James Penha’s new collection of stories: Queer as Folk Tales.
When I moved to Indonesia more than thirty years ago, I fell in love with its archipelago, its people, and its folk tales. Every island, every village, every tribe I visited had its legends, and they became for me souvenirs of travels in my adopted homeland. But most of the tales, especially when passed on to me orally by natives, were as fragmentary as an Aesop fable. I wanted to ask why a wizard would do this or why a goddess would choose that, but knew that the story-teller would have no way of knowing. When I did dare to be impolite enough to raise such queries, I would usually be told to "believe it or not. It's up to you."
Postcard Poems
You can toggle among three videos of poems read by James Penha just below.
"Writing Process," "Bali Kite Festival 2020," "Three Quakes"
