Hello friends, Ash Hsie did an incredible animated short to go with audio of one of my new poems for the newest AALR. Angry Asian Man also posted it today. Check it. Also, big ups to Antonio Rosario for the audio recording.
Ed Bok Lee x Bao Phi: Book Launch
September 23, 2011
If you see Bao Phi coming, you better do a gut check, and set your motherboard to receive. Anyone who has been lucky enough to experience his work knows he means to re-adjust our minds, unseat our comfortable assumptions, and teach our hearts to weep and sing. He is our grief-stricken brother howling, moaning, and wailing in remembrance of those who suffer because of inadequate representation. He is our ecstatic shaman,
Guante.info
September 16, 2011
The result is an incredibly emotional journey through the issues that Bao explores—but it’s emotion that’s grounded in quality writing and thoughtful political analysis, not just raw melodrama. [ Guante, Hip Hop artist — via Guante.info ] Bao’s debut collection, “Sông I Sing,” hit me in a different way. The poems here, at least to me, read like spoken-word pieces, and Bao’s understanding of structure and emotional arcs mirrors some
Welcome to BaoPhi.com v.2
September 13, 2011
finally. have a look around and let me know what you think!
A Conversation between Bao Phi and Jane Kim
September 9, 2011
[ full text available at Coffee House Press] JANE KIM: First of all, congratulations on your first book! Your first book and your first daughter came around the same time. BAO PHI: Thank you! Yeah, two major changes at once. Trying to raise my daughter has made the book, in some ways, easier. I have an easier time letting go of ideas than before. I don’t feel like I have to
Song I Sing
September 8, 2011
Now Available → Designed, published and available for purchase via Coffee House Press. A rhapsodic exploration of immigration, race, and class by Vietnamese American phenom and National Poetry Slam star Bao Phi. Dynamic and eye-opening, this debut by a National Poetry Slam finalist critiques an America sleepwalking through its days and explores the contradictions of race and class in America. Excerpt From “Prince Among Men” When it feels like no
The Godzilla Sestina
September 6, 2011
A sestina is an Italian poetic form consisting of six stanzas with six lines each plus a three line envoi at the end. The last word of each sentence, the teleutons, are repeated in a specific order, and the envoi contains all six teleutons in a specific order. The format is abcdef, faebdc, cfdabe, ecbfad, deacfb, bdfeca, envoi: be dc fa. In other words, sestinas are a pain in the
Yen Le Espiritu
September 1, 2011
Jagged yet tender, Bao Phi’s poetry mixes rough-edged critiques of racism and imperialism with resolute optimism in the power of love and community. Deeply grounded in Asian American Studies, it eloquently calls for the forging of new ties and lives out of the ruins of America’s ‘war zones’—both here in urban America and in Southeast Asia. — Yen Le Espiritu
Li-Young Lee
August 31, 2011
Anyone who has been lucky enough to experience his work knows he means to re-adjust our minds, unseat our comfortable assumptions, and teach our hearts to weep and sing. He is our grief-stricken brother howling, moaning, and wailing in remembrance of those who suffer because of inadequate representation. He is our ecstatic shaman, manifesting through his work the oldest sources of passion, imagination, and cosmic joy. Sông I Sing is