We the Gathered Heat Asian American and Pacific Islander Poetry, Performance, and Spoken Word

Franny Choi is the author of three poetry collections: The World Keeps Ending, and the World Goes On (Ecco/HarperCollins, 2022), Soft Science (Alice James Books, 2019) and Floating, Brilliant, Gone (Write Bloody Publishing, 2014). Her writing has appeared in the New York Times, The Atlantic, The Paris Review, and elsewhere. A recipient of the Lily/Rosenberg Fellowship, Princeton’s Holmes National Poetry Prize, and the Elgin Award, Franny is Faculty in Literature at Bennington College and the founder of Brew & Forge. They are at work on an essay collection about Asian robot women, forthcoming from Ecco.

Bao Phi has been a performance poet since 1991. A two-time Minnesota Grand Slam champion and a National Poetry Slam finalist, Bao Phi has appeared on HBO Presents Russell Simmons Def Poetry. He has two collections of poems, both published by Coffee House Press, Sông I Sing and Thousand Star Hotel, the latter of which was nominated for the Minnesota Book Award, named by NPR as one of the best books of 2017, and was chosen as 2017’s best poetry book of the year by San Francisco State’s Poetry Center.

Noʻu Revilla (she / her / ʻo ia) is an ʻŌiwi poet and educator. Born and raised with the Līlīlehua rain of Waiehu on the island of Maui, she currently lives and loves with the Līlīlehua rain of Pālolo on Oʻahu. Her debut book Ask the Brindled (Milkweed Editions 2022) won the 2021 National Poetry Series. Her writing has been featured in Poetry, Lit Hub, ANMLY, Beloit, Poetry Northwest, and the Library of Congress. Her work has also been adapted for theatrical productions in Aotearoa as well as art exhibitions for the Honolulu Museum of Art and the IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico. She is a lifetime “slyly / reproductive” student of Haunani-Kay Trask and teaches creative writing at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa.

Terisa Siagatonu is an award-winning poet, teaching artist, mental health educator, and community leader born and rooted in the Bay Area. Her presence in the poetry world as a queer Samoan woman and activist has granted her opportunities to perform and speak in places ranging from the White House (during the Obama administration) to the UN Conference on Climate Change in Paris, France. A Kundiman Fellow and 2019 Yerba Buena Center for the Arts 100 List Honoree, her work has been published in Poetry Magazine and has been featured on Button Poetry, CNN, NBCNews, NPR, Huffington Post, KQED, Everyday Feminism, The Guardian, BuzzFeed, and Upworthy.