A Different Pond is an unforgettable story about a simple event—a long-ago fishing trip. Write CSS OR LESS and hit save.

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. In that way, he made me feel less alone, and more okay in my own intersectional identity.

It’s not an easy task to write about someone who was so prolific on many levels from writer, to activist, to womynist, to fairy chef, etc. Bring your club to Amazon Book Clubs, start a new book club and invite your friends to join, or find a club that’s right for you for free. Known as a two-time Minnesota Grand Slam champion and National Poetry slam finalist, Bao Phi’s collection of poems rings with a hunger for the recognition of all that has been done against people of color, especially Asian Americans, in the histories unwritten. When you are his family, he would hold people to account anywhere, such as the bathroom line as he overhead them talking trash about my character. I chose to review it for diaCRITICS (at diacritics.org), a blog for Vietnamese arts, politics, and culture. There’s already a fiction book about the pandemic? Prime members enjoy FREE Delivery and exclusive access to music, movies, TV shows, original audio series, and Kindle books. When it feels like no onelets you liveat your own volume. Throughout it all, each of these young people exhibits tremendous resiliency, courage, and unabashed hope as they imagine their futures in this new country. You are hard to write about Brandon.

In order to navigate out of this carousel please use your heading shortcut key to navigate to the next or previous heading. And that is the contribution of Bao Phi.

Through his writing, community activism, and his very presence, Brandon always had a way of making his own personal journey a shared purpose for us all to connect with. When these white people crumple into a ball, when they try to raise their voices to speak, when they go insane from it all, that’s when I’ll pat them on the back, and say, that’s just the way it is. Since that moment sometime in July 2011, our paths have intertwined into both a journey and collaboration.

Bao Phi writes a loving author's note at the back for us readers, and the feelings and intent are shown in the words and gorgeous and snowy illustrations by Basia Tran.

It was always a joy to see you lay the smack down on someone.

He has been a City Pages and Star Tribune Artist of the Year. I sit there feeling so deeply what he’s saying, but a small voice inside my head is concerned of offending “white America” with how uncensored it is. I miss him - his sassy and his serious, his family focus and his wild ways.

Bao Phi has been a performance poet since 1991. He does not soften up his words to make it easier to digest, he does not smooth over our barb-wired histories for people to walk through more easily, he does not sing a soothing melody sedated mainstream America likes to hear to feel good about themselves. Bao Phi is the author of Thousand Star Hotel (2017) and Sông I Sing (2011), both from Coffee House Press, as well as the children’s book A Different Pond (Capstone Young Readers, 2017). Not all Asian people are the same. Thank you forever for being an eternal light in my life. His first children's book, to be illustrated by Thi Bui, will be published by Capstone Press in the fall of 2017. So much that he became tia Brandon to my little girls and one of Santiago's godparent. There's a problem loading this menu right now. This shopping feature will continue to load items when the Enter key is pressed. Reviewed in the United States on May 8, 2019. poems that spike the blood...that boil and jag and poke and stir. Let us use this book for improving our relations with one another and building a society that ensures a more peaceful future for generations to come." From the website: Cambodian Son documents the life of deported poet, Kosal Khiev after receiving the most important performance invitation of his career—to represent the Kingdom of Cambodia at the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad. He asks us, along with the rest of America, to celebrate our own beauties, our own strengths, our wide array of experiences and struggles, our triumphs, and our own imprints in our histories. Please read the “issues” section of our press kit and/or our movie’s website for this information: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHiUw0v8YSs&feature=youtu.be. Rather, they need to hear it, and we need to hear it ourselves. Spoken word woven with musicality, theatricality and the raw energy and charisma of Kosal offers an element of entertainment that enables a mainstream audience typically unsympathetic to the deportation of convicted felons to have a new guide into the issue. Truly outstanding, honest, tender, profound, Reviewed in the United States on August 23, 2012. The book tells the story of a boy and his father going fishing. My lover, brother, sister, roommate, child, teacher, student, collaborator, muse, source of inspiration, frustration, anxiety and many grey hairs, I loved all of him like no other. In “For Us,” Phi sings: “My people, we are a song that we can never stop singing against the silence. In that review I made the following observations: Bao Phi's wordsmithing is quite beautiful and incisive, with carefully crafted alliterations and sensory details. TUESDAY // APRIL 15, 2014 // 7-9 PM  HAMLINE UNIVERSITY-KLAS CENTER (3RD FL) 1537 TAYLOR AVENUE SAINT PAUL, MN 55104. Acclaimed poet Bao Phi delivers a powerful, honest glimpse into a relationship between father and son—and between cultures, old and new. Not all Vietnamese people are the same. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. My recent visit to NYC wasn’t the same without seeing your bright eyes and hearing your laughter, but I could see and hear all of you when Justin and I visited the memorial by your apartment. I first met Brandon when he was a 19 year old University of Minnesota student, deeply involved in the gay fraternity.

Created by TeachingBooks. Bao Phi is the author of Thousand Star Hotel (2017) and Sông I Sing (2011), both published by Coffee House Press. Like many people, the thing I will miss most is his laugh. Please try again. He has essays included in A Good Time for the Truth: Race in Minnesota as well as Octavia's Brood: Science Fiction Stories from Social Justice Movements. We reclaim ourselves for ourselves. We want people to experience his story in order to tap into compassion and a sense of justice. He occupied so many spaces at once (mixed, queer, HIV positive, activist), that it seemed like he was always pushing every boundary, every category, and every comfort level at once. Phi lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and works at the Loft Literary Center. email. “Sông I Sing” is truly a phenomenal and emotionally catharsis body of work. Meet-the-Author Recording of A Different Pond; Video Book Trailer for My Footprints; Name Pronunciation with Bao Phi; Our Original Resources 2. Reviewed in the United States on July 22, 2015. It’s so hard to put into words what Brandon has meant not only to me, but to my family as well. At least for me, when I hold this book, I don’t just read, I sing. Some fled xenophobia, others came to be reunited with family, all left behind loved ones; parents, children, friends. I almost didn’t take that trip to NYC but now I know I made the right decision. I think what I really enjoyed about this book was the Nguyens. You had a smile that always caused mine.

My people, we are a song that we can never stop singing against the silence.”. Masahiro (director) and I were introduced to Kosal by a mutual friend, another Khmer Exiled American (KEA) I knew in the US. I miss the fun parts and I want to forget what was hard but I can’t because that was part of our journey as well. I miss his randomness, his nerdyness and the teasing we would have between each other like siblings.