Bao Phi, Diana Khoi Nguyen, Cathy Linh Che, and Paul Tran converse with hosts Viet Thanh Nguyen and Philip Nguyen.
ABOUT THE GUESTS
A two-time Minnesota Grand Slam champion and a National Poetry Slam finalist, Bao Phi has appeared on HBO Presents Russell Simmons Def Poetry, featured in the live performances and taping of the blockbuster diasporic Vietnamese variety show Paris By Night 114: Tôi Là Người Việt Nam, and a poem of his appeared in the 2006 Best American Poetry anthology. His poems and essays are widely published in numerous publications including Screaming Monkeys and Spoken Word Revolution Redux. He has two collections of poems, both published by Coffeehouse Press, Sông I Sing and Thousand Star Hotel, the latter of which was nominated for the Minnesota Book Award and was chosen as 2017’s best poetry book of the year by San Francisco State’s Poetry Center.
Cathy Linh Che is the author of Split (Alice James Books), winner of the Kundiman Poetry Prize, the Norma Farber First Book Award from the Poetry Society of America, and the Best Poetry Book Award from the Association of Asian American Studies. Her work has been published in The New Republic, McSweeney’s, and Poetry. She has received awards from MacDowell, Djerassi, The Anderson Center, The Kimmel Harding Nelson Center, Artist Trust, Hedgebrook, Poets House, Poets & Writers, The Fine Arts Work Center at Provincetown, The Asian American Literary Review, The Center for Book Arts, The Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s Workspace Residency, the Jerome Foundation. She has taught at the 92nd Street Y, New York University, Fordham University, Sierra Nevada College, and the Polytechnic University at NYU. She was Sierra Nevada College’s Distinguished Visiting Professor and Writer in Residence. She serves as Executive Director at Kundiman and lives in NYC.
Poet and multimedia artist Diana Khoi Nguyen was born and raised in California. She earned a BA in English and Communication Studies from UCLA, an MFA from Columbia University, and a PhD from the University of Denver. She is the author of the chaplet Unless (Belladonna*, 2019) and debut poetry collection, Ghost Of (Omnidawn Publishing, 2018), selected for the Omnidawn Open Contest and a finalist for the National Book Award and L.A. Times Book Prize. It received the 2019 Kate Tufts Discovery Award and Colorado Book Award. Her poetry and prose have appeared widely in magazines and journals such as Poetry, American Poetry Review, and PEN America.
Paul Tran is the recipient of a Ruth Lilly & Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Fellowship from the Poetry Foundation and a Discovery/Boston Review Poetry Prize. Their work appears in The New Yorker, Poetry Magazine, Good Morning America, NYLON, and elsewhere, including the RZA-directed movie Love Beats Rhymes (Lionsgate) alongside Azealia Banks, Common, and Jill Scott. Since 2013, Paul has coached the poetry slam teams at Brown University, Barnard College & Columbia University, and Washington University in St. Louis. Paul was the first Asian American since 1993—and first transgender poet ever—to win the Nuyorican Poets Cafe Grand Slam, placing top 10 at the Individual World Poetry Slam and top 2 at the National Poetry Slam.
This episode is sponsored by AppLovin. AppLovin’s leading marketing platform provides developers a powerful set of solutions to grow their mobile apps. AppLovin’s technology platform enables developers to market, monetize, analyze and publish their apps. The company’s first-party content includes over 200+ popular, engaging apps and its technology brings that content to millions of users around the world. AppLovin is headquartered in Palo Alto, California with several offices globally. Learn more at applovin.com.
