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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A resume loses its shine
Eason Yang was on an ambitious career trajectory, helping tech companies like Uber change the world. Until he got cancer.
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A name is a thing that is changeable
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.
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Poet Michael Schmeltzer on the sensual delights of rainy days
In "Under the Umbrella...", poet Michael Schmeltzer considers the sensual delights of rain, its scents and sonic textures that enliven our environment and senses.
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Haiku comics artist David Lasky on the textures of Seattle
David Lasky combines poetry and comics in his creative practice, to craft 3-panel narrative sequential art that explores his everyday observations of living here. A practitioner and teacher of haiku comics, Lasky brings together language with simple drawings and patterns that startle the imagination.
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Poet Françoise Besnard Canter on the natural beauty of the Pacific Northwest
In "Spit", Françoise Besnard Canter lingers on the detritus and decay of marine environments to return to a state of unadulterated beauty.
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Poet Tanya Holtland laments the toll of environmental apathy
In her Ballard-based poem "Golden Gardens," Tanya Holtland contemplates environmental pollution and its impacts on non-human species and future generations.