Poets Barbara Jane Reyes and Karen Llagas converse with hosts Viet Thanh Nguyen and Philip Nguyen.

ABOUT THE GUESTS

Barbara Jane Reyes, born in Manila and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, is an acclaimed Filipina American poet and author of several books, including Gravities of Center (2003), Diwata (2010), and Letters to a Young Brown Girl (2020), with Daughtersong Diaspore forthcoming in 2027. She has also published chapbooks and numerous poems and essays in major literary journals and outlets.

A recipient of awards such as the James Laughlin Award and a Mellon Foundation Fellowship, Reyes holds degrees from UC Berkeley and San Francisco State University. She teaches Philippine Studies at the University of San Francisco and lives in Oakland with her husband, poet Oscar Bermeo.

Karen Llagas’s new poetry collection, All of Us Are Cleaved, is recently published by Nomadic Press in 2023. Her first collection of poetry, Archipelago Dust, was published by Meritage Press in 2010. Other recent projects include translations of Filipino children’s books into English: Dancing Hands: A Story of Friendship in Filipino Sign Language (Chronicle Books, 2023) & How Do You Eat Color (Eerdman’s Book for Young Readers, 2025). A recipient of a RHINO Founder's Prize, Filamore Tabios, Sr. Memorial Poetry Prize & a Hedgebrook residency, her poems, translations, and book reviews have also appeared in various journals and anthologies, including most recently, Dear Human at the Edge of Time: Poems on Climate Change in the United States (Paloma Press, 2023). She teaches Filipino at UC Berkeley and divides her time between San Francisco and Los Angeles. You can find more about her at www.karenllagas.com.