Pichchenda Bao

Jun 27, 2024 | swwimmiami.substack.com | Pichchenda Bao |with Nicole Callihan |Jennifer Bradley Franklin

Applications for the SWWIM + The Betsy residency are now open until 8/1. Apply on Submittable!Are you a SWWIMmer with literary news to share (publication/feature/award/book/book review)? We’d love to shout out your accomplishments in our Weekly Spotlight! Please email [email protected] with a link to your news. (No DMs on any social media platforms, please.)Check out our archives for current and previous poems of the day.

May 9, 2024 | theoffingmag.com | Sumita Chakraborty |Pichchenda Bao |Shireen Madon

https://theoffingmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Chakraborty_Offing-Recording.mp3I once lay on a floorwhile a womandangled a speakerfrom a wire,and from that speakercame the soundsof a black hole,and into that black holeI imagined sendinga sound of my own,low and tremulous,so I could sing alongwith gravity. In my dreams, I screamat the forest’s shoreline,and after a brief, velvetpause, the forestscreams back. It means something:to know you are alone,and then to learnthat you are wrong.

May 8, 2024 | theoffingmag.com | Pichchenda Bao |Jess Yuan |Andy Chen |Shireen Madon

https://theoffingmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/First_Prayer.m4a Poured rose syrup over my cut-apart parts Healed my body, forced lush greenery around me in an imagined Bombay In Brooklyn, looked to lilac crystals my daughters collected and cataloged vaguely each visit to the museum Reminded to be nowhere ever, never where but this body Reminded I cannot be a part or apart of history but this body Reminded I close my eyes eating rice without dal down in New Orleans or dal without rice in...

May 7, 2024 | theoffingmag.com | Pichchenda Bao |Jess Yuan |Andy Chen |Iris Law

https://theoffingmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/One_Refugee_Poets_Origin_Story.m4aI knew I was a poetnot becausewhen my fathercalled medog, his voiceragged with contemptand disappointment,I had knownwhere to stashthe memoryso that no onewould get hurt. No. I knew I wasa poet becausewhen ice encasedthe sidewalk trees,they became jeweled bloomsgleaming at melike a song from lost memory. No. It’s not thatpoets just see beauty,following itlike a migratory instinct.

May 12, 2023 | culturaldaily.com | Pichchenda Bao

On Not Knowing You, a Cambodian American LegacyYou would think I would knowwhat to do with loss—remote like a prayer,urgent like a country. This can’t be grief. I’m never sad enough. Even when I eat my parents’ memories,my palate cannot place them. The names of fruit, vegetables, peopledissipate before I can fix my mindto that task of holding on to them,what grew in the ground by their homes,and who lived there,and who died. Once, there, I walked througha grove of low trees with wide leaves.