Troy Osaki’s project for the 2020 Jack Straw Writers Program is a chapbook manuscript of poems that he began writing after visiting the Philippines for the first time in 2017. In his conversation with curator Anastacia-Renée, they discuss poetry’s ability to create social change, his history with Youth Speaks, and cultural and familial connections. “I really learned that not only is . . . writing a way to get through the complicated things in life and to process, but it really, truly has the power to go beyond that and imagine new ways and what’s possible.”

Troy is a Filipino Japanese poet, community organizer, and attorney from Seattle, WA. A three-time grand slam poetry champion, he has received fellowships from Kundiman and the Jack Straw Cultural Center and is the recipient of an Artist Trust award. His work has appeared in the Bellingham Review, Drunk in a Midnight Choir, Moss: A Journal of the Pacific Northwest, and elsewhere.

SoundPages was produced by Jack Straw Cultural Center as part of the Jack Straw Writers Program. All of the writers heard in this series are published in the Jack Straw Writers Anthology, and featured online at www.jackstraw.org. Music by SassyBlack, produced as part of the Jack Straw Artist Support Program.