AI
Name: Ai
Ai was born in Tuscan, AZ. She insists that she is black, Japanese, Choctaw,
Cheyenne, Comanche, and Irish. She does not feel a particular connection for her
African-American heritage but she does feel a connection with the Native-American
tribes of the southwest since she has lived there so long. She had a troubled,
poor childhood where here mother concealed her Japanese father’s existence, a
secret that can tear apart the mind of a child. She moved constantly in her
childhood across the Southwestern United States, which must have caused a lot of
stress and grief. When she was fourteen, she first started writing when she
sought to enter a poetry contest when she attended a Los Angeles Catholic school.
Even though she didn’t enter the contest because she had to move, Ai realized
that she had skill with the pen. Her biggest influences have been her teachers
especially her first poetry teacher who established her habit of using first
person. Mostly, she feels she has developed independently and is not influenced
by other writers. Some Latin writers such as Miguel Hernandez, Marquez, and
Vallejo inspire her through their use of language not commonly used in America.
She graduated from the University of Arizona with a bachelor degree in Japanese,
and also has a M.F.A from UC-Irvine. She writes about things that come to her
through real life happenings as described by the media or personal experience.
For example, she can be listening to the radio or watching the news and she
hears a particular lyric or newscast that catches her interest. She’ll have a
mindset to write about that topic or person relentlessly until the poem is
finished.
Many consider Ai an avid writer, and it shows. Her works have recently won the
National Book award for Vice, the Lamont poetry award, and the American Book
Award. Currently Ai is living in Stillwater, Oklahoma, where she teaches at
Oklahoma State University.
“There aren’t many poets whose language so precisely resonates with the
pervasive concerns of the contemporary human condition,” (Carolyn Forché, Vice).
“Ai is a strong, powerful poet who writes about real things. These are daring,
disturbing, ambitious poems that go for the heart of America” (Joy Harjo, Vice).
Her personal experience influences her writing by taking a cynical outlook on
the world and unveiling that darkness in her poetry. Her constant use of
violence, sex, and off the wall topics suggest that she was not pleased with her
constant moving, and not having a true settled child and teen hood. Her poems
reach a new perspective in fictional poetry as she writes about truth, eroticism,
hot button issues, and violence through current events and pop culture
references. She exposes past scandals from a first person view, and gives her
characters strong dialogue and mobility throughout her poems. Her many voices
she takes in her poetry include Jimmy Hoffa, Jack Ruby, Lyndon Johnson, General
Custer, and many more. In her dramatic monologues, her background and ability to
display cultural dissection is imminent. She has published several books
including Sin, Killing Floor, Fate, Greed, and Cruelty.
Name: Ai
Ai was born in Tuscan, AZ. She insists that she is black, Japanese, Choctaw,
Cheyenne, Comanche, and Irish. She does not feel a particular connection for her
African-American heritage but she does feel a connection with the Native-American
tribes of the southwest since she has lived there so long. She had a troubled,
poor childhood where here mother concealed her Japanese father’s existence, a
secret that can tear apart the mind of a child. She moved constantly in her
childhood across the Southwestern United States, which must have caused a lot of
stress and grief. When she was fourteen, she first started writing when she
sought to enter a poetry contest when she attended a Los Angeles Catholic school.
Even though she didn’t enter the contest because she had to move, Ai realized
that she had skill with the pen. Her biggest influences have been her teachers
especially her first poetry teacher who established her habit of using first
person. Mostly, she feels she has developed independently and is not influenced
by other writers. Some Latin writers such as Miguel Hernandez, Marquez, and
Vallejo inspire her through their use of language not commonly used in America.
She graduated from the University of Arizona with a bachelor degree in Japanese,
and also has a M.F.A from UC-Irvine. She writes about things that come to her
through real life happenings as described by the media or personal experience.
For example, she can be listening to the radio or watching the news and she
hears a particular lyric or newscast that catches her interest. She’ll have a
mindset to write about that topic or person relentlessly until the poem is
finished.
Many consider Ai an avid writer, and it shows. Her works have recently won the
National Book award for Vice, the Lamont poetry award, and the American Book
Award. Currently Ai is living in Stillwater, Oklahoma, where she teaches at
Oklahoma State University.
“There aren’t many poets whose language so precisely resonates with the
pervasive concerns of the contemporary human condition,” (Carolyn Forché, Vice).
“Ai is a strong, powerful poet who writes about real things. These are daring,
disturbing, ambitious poems that go for the heart of America” (Joy Harjo, Vice).
Her personal experience influences her writing by taking a cynical outlook on
the world and unveiling that darkness in her poetry. Her constant use of
violence, sex, and off the wall topics suggest that she was not pleased with her
constant moving, and not having a true settled child and teen hood. Her poems
reach a new perspective in fictional poetry as she writes about truth, eroticism,
hot button issues, and violence through current events and pop culture
references. She exposes past scandals from a first person view, and gives her
characters strong dialogue and mobility throughout her poems. Her many voices
she takes in her poetry include Jimmy Hoffa, Jack Ruby, Lyndon Johnson, General
Custer, and many more. In her dramatic monologues, her background and ability to
display cultural dissection is imminent. She has published several books
including Sin, Killing Floor, Fate, Greed, and Cruelty.