In 1971, a teen named Patricia Ikeda won a Scholastic Award for Poetry. 

Patricia Ikeda went on to become among the first Asian American poets to be published. A volume of Ikeda’s poems was published by Cleveland State University in 1978 and in the 1983 anthology Breaking Silence: An Anthology of Contemporary Asian American Poets. Post graduating from the Iowa Graduate Writers Workshop, Ikeda’s career took off teaching creative writing and contemporary literature in universities. It was then that a spiritual quest led her to give up all of her belongings, and move into a Zen Buddhist Temple in Ann Arbor, Michigan, taking a vow of poverty in May 1983. 

In the late ‘80’s, Ikeda found writing again, publishing a quarterly column on Buddhist family practice published in the Buddhist Peace Fellowship’s magazine, Turning Wheel, which she would continue for the following decade. 

Since then, Ikeda has become known for “her down-to-earth, humorous, and penetrating approach” to Dharma and social transformation. As a Buddhist teacher and author, Ikeda has won various awards, including the Alice Hayes Fellowship from the Ragdale Foundation, a one-month residency for writers working toward social change and justice. 

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