A Conversation with Perugia’s Intern: Evelyn Chi

Evelyn Chi is completing a summer internship at Perugia Press, sponsored by the Houston Program at Amherst College. This is the second summer Perugia has been able to offer an internship as a partnership between Perugia and the Loeb Center for Career Exploration and Planning at Amherst. Jean Blakeman, Perugia Press board member, conducted an interview with Evelyn about her experience as a Perugia intern and as a scholar.

Q. What first brought you to poetry?

A. I was an avid reader of fiction and prose growing up, but I wasn’t truly introduced to poetry until college when I joined a literary club at Amherst called Asian American Writers’ Group. I remember reading Ocean Vuong’s “Self-Portrait as Exit Wounds” and feeling moved by how such vivid sensory imagery and heartbreaking descriptions of violence could be expressed in short, two-line stanzas. I am the president of this club now, and we continue to highlight a diverse range of Asian American / Asian Diasporic poets and writers through weekly discussions and writing workshops. 

Q. How did you first encounter Perugia Press?

A. I discovered Perugia Press by perusing the Amherst College career center’s Arts and Communications weekly newsletter. There, I found out about the press’s summer internship, and I also learned that Director Rebecca Olander was a visiting professor of poetry at Amherst College. I felt excited by the press’s connection to my school, and Perugia was a perfect match for me due to my interests in both literature and feminist issues as an English and Women’s and Gender Studies double major. 

Q. What have you been involved with so far at the press?

A. I conducted an interview with Joan Kwon Glass in order to promote her new book, Daughter of Three Gone Kingdoms. I’m currently working on developing the interview into a full-length YouTube video, a blog post, and an Instagram reels video. I created writing prompts and designed Instagram posts for previous books like Carolina Hotchandani’s The Book Eaters and Megan Peak’s Girldom, and I am reading and reviewing manuscript submissions for the 2025 Perugia Press Prize.

Q. What are some things that stay with you from the books you’ve been working with?

A. While working on both current and previous Perugia Press publications, I am always so impressed by the depth of emotion conveyed by our talented poets, as well as the wide variety of poetic style and book topics. Notably, I am in awe of Girldom’s dark descriptions of female interiority and sexuality in lines like these from the poem “Sister of Boxed Hair Dye”: “The finches take their time with you, make / nests in your glass body, their blood-wet / babes budding like tombs.” 

Q. Other than being Perugia’s intern, tell us a bit about yourself.

A. I’m a senior at Amherst College, and I’m from Los Angeles, California. I am Taiwanese American and can speak three languages, including Mandarin and Spanish. I’m a big foodie, animal lover, and nature enthusiast. Earlier this year, I studied abroad at Oxford University for my junior spring semester, which was a magical experience.

Q. Do you have a favorite poet? Or a favorite poet of the moment?

A. Since this is my final year at Amherst, I’ve been thinking a lot about Emily Dickinson and feeling connected to her love towards the town of Amherst. I took an English course called Early Women Writers last fall, and our class got to tour the Emily Dickinson Museum. I loved seeing Dickinson’s quaint, floral-wallpapered bedroom, with the small wooden desk where she would write her poems next to a window. Recently, I’ve been thinking about poems like “The Robin’s my Critieron for Tune” to understand how I, like Dickinson, can see “New Englandly” and appreciate the birdsong and changing of seasons during my last year here. 

Other poets I love are Natalie Diaz (Postcolonial Love Poem), Aracelis Girmay (the black maria), and Diana Khoi Nguyen (Ghost Of). I was thrilled to see Diana Khoi Nguyen had written in support of Daughter of Three Gone Kingdoms (scroll through praise quotes to read Nguyen’s) and that Perugia had celebrated her in the Emerging BIWOC Poet Spotlight in 2020, as she was already a favorite of mine.

Q. Perugia’s work centers on highlighting the work of women writers, with our latest publication by Korean diasporic poet Joan Kwon Glass. Does the mission of the press and the work represented by our latest title connect to the work you do as a student at Amherst College?

A. Yes! Learning about Joan and her new book was a big reason why I wanted to work with Perugia. I’m currently working on an English thesis closely related to Joan’s themes of ghosts, absence, and the Asian American experience in Daughter of Three Gone Kingdoms. My thesis is entitled “Racialized Hauntings and Rememory in Toni Morrison’s Beloved and Shawna Yang Ryan’s Green Island,” and it explores intergenerational trauma, historical violence, and postcolonial ghosts in the two novels. In June this summer, I traveled to Taiwan on a research grant to learn more about the 228 Massacre and White Terror, two key historical events in the Taiwanese American novel Green Island. I will be working on completing my thesis throughout my senior year. 

Q. How do you see poetry fitting into your life as you move forward?

A. In addition to continuing to discover and celebrate AAPI poets in my club Asian American Writers’ Group, I hope to attend the upcoming Tell It Slant Poetry Festival at the Emily Dickinson Museum this September. I also look forward to attending my college’s annual LitFest next spring, where we have invited famous poets such as Victoria Chang, Natasha Trethewey, and Tyehimba Jess to give talks and readings. 

Editor’s note: It’s been such a pleasure to work with Evelyn Chi this summer – a great match was made between Evelyn, Amherst College, and Perugia Press! Thanks to Jean Blakeman for conducting this interview, to the Loeb Center at Amherst for funding through the Charles Hamilton Houston Internship Program, to Kirun Kapur for first facilitating the connection between the Loeb Center and Perugia, and to Evelyn for your creative, thoughtful, and attentive work this summer.