October 14, 2024
Asa Drake

Asa Drake is a Filipina/white poet in Central Florida. She is the author of Maybe the Body (Tin House, 2026) and Beauty Talk (Noemi Press, 2026), winner of the 2024 Noemi Press Book Award. A National Poetry Series finalist, she is the recipient of fellowships and awards from the 92Y Discovery Poetry Contest, Kenyon Review Residential Writers Workshop, the Rona Jaffe Foundation, Storyknife, Sundress Publications, Tin House and Idyllwild Arts. Her poems are published or forthcoming in the American Poetry Review, Georgia Review, and Poetry. A former librarian, she currently works as a teaching artist.
Mothers say, happiness is inherited.
Sometimes the garden is made of stones.
Care first. Decide about love later.
I’m not interested in making myself legible or accessible to others. I try to write my poems as clearly as possible for myself. I’m the only person that I have to make comfortable.

