Shin Yu Pai
Host, Ten Thousand Things
About
Shin Yu Pai [pronounced Shin Yee Pie] is the current Civic Poet for The City of Seattle (2023-24) and host of KUOW's podcast Ten Thousand Things (formerly The Blue Suit). Shin Yu is a 2022 Artist Trust Fellow and was shortlisted for a 2014 Stranger Genius in Literature. She is the author of eleven books of poetry, including most recently Virga (Empty Bowl, 2021). From 2015 to 2017, she served as the fourth Poet Laureate of the City of Redmond. Her essays and nonfiction writing have appeared in Atlas Obscura, NY Times, Tricycle, YES! Magazine, The Rumpus, Seattle Met, Zocalo Public Square, Gastronomica, City Arts, The Stranger, South Seattle Emerald, International Examiner, Ballard News-Tribune, Seattle’s Child, Seattle Globalist, and ParentMap. Shin Yu’s work has appeared in publications throughout the U.S., Japan, China, Taiwan, The United Kingdom, and Canada. She is represented by Tyler Tsay at The Speakeasy Project.
Podcasts
Stories
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Book
Shawn Wong discovered the first Japanese American novel, No-No Boy, at a used bookstore for 50 cents, after being told by his English professors that Asian American literature didn’t exist.
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Jizo Bodhisattva
During the mizu kuyo ritual for pregnancy loss, a small Jizo Bodhisattva statue enshrines ceremonial remains of a lost child. Following Shin Yu’s miscarriage in 2012, she had a mizu kuyo ceremony to process her grief.
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Steelhead
Dylan Tomine has a passion for steelhead trout. Or an obsession. Or an addiction.
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Time Capsule
On the eve of selling her family’s house, Donna Miscolta’s daughter had a special request: Go to the stairwell and pull back the loose board on the bottom step.
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Resume
Eason Yang was on an ambitious career trajectory, helping tech companies like Uber change the world. Until he got cancer.
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Name
A name is an object that defines who we are. But what if our name is wrong?
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Poetry in Bloom: 30 days of Seattle-centric themes and verses
A note from Seattle Civic Poet, Shin Yu Pai.
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Poet Sara Marie Ortiz on what the moon has to teach us
Poet Sara Marie Ortiz looks at Seattle's landscape from a bird's-eye view, while contemplating natural and urban worlds, ever-present change, and all that's mutable.
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Poet Nadine Maestas on psychedelic journeying and seeing the sacred in everything
In "I Dreamt that We Ate Mushrooms Together," poet Nadine Antoinette Maestas brings the reader along on a sacred and immersive journey of becoming one again with nature, to remind humans of our own fundamental wildness.
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Poet Raul Sanchez on finding a voice that transcends language and borders
Raul Sanchez's poetry reflects an influence of American culture tangled with Sanchez's Mexican roots.