Kimiko Hahn

Kimiko Hahn was born on July 5, 1955, in Mount Kisco, New York, the child of artists—a Japanese American mother from Hawai‘i and a German American father from Wisconsin. Hahn is the author of ten collections of poetry, including The Ghost Forest: New and Selected Poems (W. W. Norton, 2024); Foreign Bodies (W. W. Norton, 2020); and The Unbearable Heart (Kaya Production, 1995), which received an American Book Award. Hahn’s work often explores desire and death, and the intersections of conflicting identities. She frequently draws on, and even reinvents, classic forms and techniques such as the zuihitsu, as popularized by The Pillow Book by Sei Shōnagon. In January 2023, Hahn was elected to become a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets. In June 2025, she was named New York State Poet. (Source)