Barbara Jane Reyes was born in Manila, Philippines
and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area. She received her undergraduate
education at UC Berkeley, and her MFA at San Francisco State
University. She is the author of Gravities of Center (Arkipelago,
2003) and Poeta en San Francisco (Tinfish, 2005), for
which she received the James Laughlin Award of the Academy of
American Poets.
Reyes is a recent Pushcart Prize nominee, and her work has appeared
or is forthcoming in numerous publications, including 2nd
Avenue Poetry, Asian Pacific American Journal, Boxcar
Poetry Review, Chain, Crate, Interlope, New
American Writing, Nocturnes Review, North American
Review, Notre Dame Review, Parthenon West Review, Shampoo
Poetry, Tinfish, Versal, as well as in the anthologies Babaylan (Aunt
Lute, 2000), Eros Pinoy (Anvil, 2001), InvAsian:
Asian Sisters Represent (Study Center Press, 2003), Going
Home to a Landscape (Calyx, 2003), Coloring Book (Rattlecat,
2003), Not Home But Here (Anvil, 2003), Pinoy Poetics (Meritage,
2004), Asian Americans in the San Francisco Bay Area (Avalon
Publishing, 2004), 100 Love Poems: Philippine Love Poetry
Since 1905 (University of the Philippines Press, 2004),
The Lambda Award finalist Red Light: Superheroes, Saints
and Sluts (Arsenal Pulp, 2005), Graphic Poetry (Victionary,
2005), The First Hay(na)ku Anthology (Meritage, 2005).
She is a Visiting Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at
Mills College, and she lives with her husband, the poet Oscar
Bermeo, in Oakland, CA.
