CHRYSANTHEMUM is a poet, performance artist & public historian.
She serves as Co-Director of the Providence Poetry Slam.
Photo: Allie + Jesse
Photo: Zach Oren
Chrysanthemum is a poet, performance artist, and public historian. She serves as Co-Director of the Providence Poetry Slam, one of the oldest slam venues in the US. She is the recipient of a 2023 Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Fellowship from the Poetry Foundation, a Kundiman Fellow, and a Lambda Literary 2023 Justin Chin Memorial Scholarship Fellow. In 2024, she was named the inaugural Poet-in-Residence for LGBTQ Writers in Schools’ first-ever LGBTQ+ Youth Poet Laureate Residency.
She broke ground as a finalist in the 2016 Women of the World Poetry Slam, and her teams were champions of the Rustbelt Poetry Slam and the first FEM Slam. With Justice Ameer, she served as Artist-in-Residence at Williams College and staged the interdisciplinary show ANTHEM at the American Repertory Theater's OBERON. Through the support of a MacColl Johnson Fellowship from the Rhode Island Foundation, Chrysanthemum organized the Vanishing Point Writing Retreat to connect diasporic Asian poets through collaborative, peer-led instruction, modeled after Rachel McKibbens’ Pink Door Writing Retreat.
Now calling Providence home, she was born to Vietnamese parents in Oklahoma City, where she came of age around the NW 39th Street gayborhood and Asian American enclave. Chrysanthemum is developing her debut collection of poems. Her writing appears in The Nation, Them, The Offing, The Rumpus, Button Poetry, among others.
Chrysanthemum is represented by Tyler Tsay at The Speakeasy Project for booking inquiries.
“Reading Ellison on Ellison Avenue”
This new poem from Chrysanthemum, published August 2025 in The Shade Journal, doubles as an ode to the high school English teacher in Oklahoma City who introduced her to authors such as “Toni, Alice, Maxine, James.”
In exchange for trumpet lessons,
Ralph maintained Ludwig’s lawn.
A fine student at Douglass High,
Ralph rode a westbound streetcar
to learn from an orchestra conductor
who taught at an all-white school:
Classen—where he would be invited
as the one-and-only to study in secret
at a high school he could not attend.
I learn about him in that building,
“Aubade for the Habana Inn”
The Academy of American Poets published a new poem by Chrysanthemum curated by July 2024 Poem-A-Day Guest Editor torrin a. greathouse. In “About this Poem,” Chrysanthemum wrote: “Once billed as ‘the Southwest’s largest gay resort,’ the former Habana Inn opened in Oklahoma City’s gayborhood in 1968. I grew up nearby, captivated by its sign, which featured a yellow sun. I departed from my hometown before I could legally enter, convinced that leaving was necessary to attain safety as a young trans person.”
Before adolescence reached me, each morning
I marveled past the Habana Inn, a degenerate haven
hidden plainly off Route 66. My cheeks clenched
as I caught in the rearview oblique glimpses
of men, their beards groomed to signal discretion.
39th and Penn: a revolving sleuth of leathered pickups,
hot rods in cruise control. I numbered plates
skipping town from out-of-state
as we got groceries at what was Homeland,
which once was Safeway, but now is Goodwill.
“Alias”
Read a new poem from Chrysanthemum featured in March 2024 for Split This Rock's Poem of the Week series. “Alias” is anthologized in We the Gathered Heat: Asian American and Pacific Islander Poetry, Performance, and Spoken Word (Haymarket Books, 2024).
I make no pledge
to do no harm. Above all, a diagnosis is billable.
Naming wheels an economy so certain I yearn
for recognition. I would rather not be referred
to at all.
“Biological Woman”
For National Poetry Month 2024, The Rumpus has published a poem penned after Maya Angelou. Chrysanthemum performed an earlier version “Biological Woman” on finals stage at the Women of the World Poetry Slam in 2018.
Crossing a street,
I conceive of constellations
as women
who lived once,
who reach us now,
who lit ways forth
so we make it home safe—
“I Don’t Even Like Sports”
For Ours Poetica, a collaboration between curators Charlotte Abotsi & Sarah Kay, Complexly and The Poetry Foundation, Chrysanthemum debuts a new poem that takes aim at coordinated legislative efforts to limit trans livelihoods.
A new version of “I Don’t Even Like Sports” is anthologized in Emerge: The Anthology for the 2023 Lambda Literary Writers Retreat (2024).
ReorientingReads.com
Uncanceled, unghosted, and still here. Join us for a virtual reading in celebration of Asian diasporic trans, non-binary, and gender-expansive writers as we gather to launch and fundraise for ReorientingReads.com, a new campaign and community resource for lovers and learners of our stories. This event, organized in the wake of the cancellation of the 2023 Asian American Literary Festival, will be held virtually on Zoom. Saturday, November 11th, 2023 at 3 pm PT / 6 pm ET. As grief and violence persist, we gather collectively to defy all attempts to censor our livelihoods.
ANTHEM
With poet & long-time collaborator Justice Ameer, she staged ANTHEM at the American Repertory Theater's OBERON, weaving poetry, music, song & media arts into a lyrical performance exploring the lasting legacies of historical vanguards on the contours of race, sex & gender. "Moments of rare joy and celebrations of survival are part of the premise," wrote WBUR of the debut show.
Vanishing Point Writing Retreat
Through a MacColl Johnson Fellowship from the Rhode Island Foundation, Chrysanthemum organized the Vanishing Point Writing Retreat to connect Asian poets, writers & artists in diaspora through collaborative, peer-led instruction. This was modeled after Rachel McKibbens’ Pink Door Writing Retreat.
Photos: Tarik Bartel
Find Chrysanthemum
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PBS | True Colors: LGBTQ+ Our Music, Our Stories”
Alongside Justice Ameer, Chrysanthemum discusses sisterhood, found family, and the pursuit of locating oneself in queer history in “True Colors: LGBTQ+ Our Music, Our Stories”, a PBS special hosted by Amy Schneider.
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Them: "When Remembering Stonewall, We Need To Listen to Those Who Were There"
In this essay for Them, Chrysanthemum confronts the discrepancies between the historical record and the modern mythology surrounding who started the Stonewall Riots.
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The Nation: "How Do You Create Community Out of a Rainbow of Difference?"
In this essay penned with Justice Ameer, Chrysanthemum reflects on messiness, the challenges of chosen family, and the importance of not working alone in the fight for queer liberation.
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Women of the World Poetry Slam: "Biological Woman"
In celebration of women who’ve come before her, Chrysanthemum offers a poem after Maya Angelou’s “Phenomenal Woman” on the finals stage of the Women of the World Poetry Slam, an annual global poetry slam tournament.
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On the Road
Chrysanthemum has perfomed poems and led writing workshops across the country, including visits to Harvard University, Yale University, University of Chicago, Asian American Writers' Workshop, Brooklyn Academy of Music, Skirball Cultural Center, the Cantab Lounge, and East Meets Words.
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The New York Times Video | The Stonewall You Know Is a Myth. And That’s O.K.
In this New York Times video for Stonewall’s 50th anniversary, Chrysanthemum provides perspective on how myths of LGBTQ+ historical figures persist online, calling for the community to embrace the messiness.
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Vanishing Point Writing Retreat
Through a MacColl Johnson Fellowship from the Rhode Island Foundation, Chrysanthemum organized the Vanishing Point Writing Retreat to further the development of and connection between diasporic Asian artists who are queer, trans, women, and non-binary.
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"ANTHEM"
Blending poetry, music, song, and media arts, ANTHEM is a debut show produced, written and performed by Chrysanthemum and Justice Ameer for the American Repertory Theater's OBERON. "Moments of rare joy and celebrations of survival are part of the premise", writes WBUR.
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Button Poetry: "On (Not) Forgiving My Mother"
With over 70,000 views on Button Poetry, Chrysanthemum’s poem about legal legibility for Vietnamese trans women led her to victory at the Rustbelt Poetry Slam, alongside Franny Choi, Rachel Rostad, and Paul Tran.
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The Offing: "On Using the Trans Panic Defense"
Originally published in The Offing and anthologized in Bettering American Poetry, this poem dissects the trans panic defense used by a United States Marine in legal proceedings for his murder of Jennifer Laude, a trans woman in the Philippines.
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Get Lit Anthology: "Behold! A Spectacle"
Originally published in The Offing, Chrysanthemum’s poem was featured in the Get Lit Anthology, a curated curriculum that pairs classic poetry with spoken word.
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Button Poetry: "Transplant"
Exploring her fraught relationships with trans visibility and Asian American visibility through her childhood memories of Photoshop, this poem earned Chrysanthemum recognition as “Best Poet” at the College Unions Poetry Slam Invitational.
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Muzzle Magazine: "Binge"
Published by Muzzle Magazine, Chrysanthemum’s poem meditates on the non-linear relationship between passing and gender-affirming medical interventions.
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Button Poetry: "Cognates"
Excavates the French colonial history in the Vietnamese word pê-đê, a derogatory term meaning effeminate, gay, or queer, this poem first debuted at the Women of the World Poetry Slam in Brooklyn, where Chrysanthemum became the first trans woman finalist of the tournament.
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Providence Poetry Slam
The Providence Poetry Slam is Rhode Island’s longest running poetry slam and open mic venue. Having represented ProvSlam at the National Poetry Slam and mentoring youth poets, Chrysanthemum is a humble part of the volunteer team that organizes and hosts shows every first and third Thursday at AS220.
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Mural in Rochester, NY
As former attendees of the Pink Door Writing Retreat held in Rochester by Rachel McKibbens, Chinese-Canadian filmmaker, public artist and poet Jess X. Snow painted a mural that features Chrysanthemum and an excerpt from her poem “Biological Woman”.
