Barbara Tran

Barbara Tran (born 1968) is an American poet.

Born in New York City, she received her B.A. from New York University and her M.F.A. from Columbia University. She coedited the anthology Watermark: Vietnamese American Poetry and Prose (Asian American Writers' Workshop, 1998) and guest edited Viet Nam: Beyond the Frame, a special issue of Michigan Quarterly Review (Fall 2004). She is the recipient of a Lannan Foundation Writing Residency, Bread Loaf Writers' Conference Scholarship, MacDowell Colony Gerald Freund Fellowship, and Pushcart Prize, and is featured in filmmaker Yunah Hong's documentary Between the Lines: Asian American Women's Poetry. Her poems have appeared in the Women's Review of Books, Ploughshares, and The New Yorker, as well as in the Williams College Museum of Art exhibit "The Moon is Broken: Photography from Poetry, Poetry from Photography." Barbara's first poetry collection, In the Mynah Bird's Own Words (Tupelo Press, 2002), was selected by Robert Wrigley as the winner of Tupelo Press' chapbook competition, and was a PEN/Open Book Award finalist. The collection was reviewed by poet Christian Langworthy for the Michigan Quarterly Review.

Barbara's writing has appeared in the following publications:

Literary Journals: Amerasia Journal, Antioch Review, Arts & Letters: Journal of Contemporary Culture, Asian Avenue, The Asian Pacific American Journal, Audrey Magazine, Columbia: A Journal of Poetry and Art, Crab Orchard Review, Drunken Boat, CrossConnect, Manoa: A Pacific Journal of International Writing, Michigan Quarterly Review, The New Yorker, nycBigCityLit.com, Pequod, Ploughshares, Rain City Review, Seneca Review, Solo, The Southern Poetry Review, Viet Magnet, Viet Nam Forum: Not a War, Vietnam Journal, Viet Tide, The Women’s Review of Books.

Anthologies/Collections: Bold Words: A Century of Asian American Writing, From Both Sides Now, On a Bed of Rice, Poetry Nation: North American Anthology of Fusion Poetry, Premonitions: The Kaya Anthology of New Asian North American Poetry, Language for a New Century, Local/Express: Asian American Arts and Community, MỸ VIỆT: Vietnamese American Literature in English, Pushcart Prize XXIII, Watermark: Vietnamese American Poetry & Prose.

In Fall 2015, Barbara will be a Writer in Residence at Hedgebrook. She lives in Toronto, Canada.

Barbara Tran online

• Barbara Tran's personal webpage
• Three poems from crossconnect, "Rosary", "Rules of the Game", and "Fodder"
• "Phu Nhuan", a poem