Wo Chan — the smiley barista remembers my name

Poetry Unbound

What do sandwiches, laundry, therapy, childhood homes, and forgiveness have to do with each other? Wo Chan weaves a poem that charts the many things a single day can hold.

Wo Chan is a poet and drag artist who performs as The Illustrious Pearl. They are a winner of the Nightboat Poetry Prize and the author of Togetherness (Nightboat Books, 2022). Wo has received fellowships from MacDowell, New York Foundation of the Arts, Kundiman, The Asian American Writers Workshop, Poets House, and Lambda Literary. Their poems appear in POETRY, WUSSY, Mass Review, No Tokens, The Margins, and elsewhere. As a member of the Brooklyn-based drag/burlesque collective Switch N’ Play, Wo has performed at venues including The Whitney Museum of American Art, National Sawdust, New York Live Arts, and the Architectural Digest Expo. Find them at @theillustriouspearl.

Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.

We’re pleased to offer Wo Chan’s poem, and invite you to connect with Poetry Unbound throughout this season.