They Rise Like a Wave is an anthology that captures the dynamic and shifting landscape of Asian American poetry, a poetics that continues to grow and transform, a poetics that continues by breaking boundaries, experimenting with language, and revitalizing a historically narrow and oppressive Western canon. These poems emerge out of this particular political and historical moment–a time when language's challenge to represent the complexities of reality is an aesthetic, political, and moral charge. We hope this anthology serves as an invitation to further conversation, as another way station on this ongoing journey. At this time of reckoning and renewal, let us remember that poetry can be both a reflection of lived experience as well as a call to imagine how to build a better world.