Short Bio
KAY ULANDAY BARRETT is a poet, essayist, cultural strategist, and A+ napper is a 2024 Disabled Futures fellow awarded by The Ford Foundation, Mellon Foundation, and United States Artists. They are the winner of the 2022 Foundation for Contemporary Arts Cy Twombly Award for Poetry, a winner of the 2022 Next Book Residency with Tin House, a James Baldwin Fellowship at MacDowell, and most recently in 2023, residencies at Baldwin for the Arts and Millay Arts awarded by Lambda Literary. Their second book, More Than Organs (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2020) received a 2021 Stonewall Honor Book Award by the American Library Association and is a 2021 Lambda Literary Award Finalist. They have featured at The United Nations, The Lincoln Center, The Hemispheric Institute, The Whitney, The MoMA, Symphony Space, The Ford Foundation, Brooklyn Museum, Princeton, Columbia, Yale, Manchester PRIDE, Sesame Street, & more. Their contributions are found in The New York Times, Poetry Magazine, Colorlines, Literary Hub, The Advocate, Poetry Unbound, Split This Rock, Al Jazeera, NYLON, Vogue, The Rumpus, The Lily, and elsewhere. For more info: kaybarrett.net & @Brownroundboi on social media.
Long Bio
A 2021 Lambda Literary Finalist, 2021 Stonewall Award Honor Book author, and Winner of the 2022 Cy Twombly Award for Poetry by the Foundation of Contemporary Arts., Kay Ulanday Barrett aka @brownroundboi, is a poet, performer, and educator, navigating life as a disabled Filipinx-amerikan transgender queer in the U.S. with struggle, resistance, and laughter.
Recently, he was awarded a 2024 Disabled Futures Fellowship by The Ford Foundation, Mellon Foundation, and United States Artists. have received fellowships from Tin House, MacDowell, The Home School, Drunken Boat, VONA Voices, and The Lambda Literary Review. K. has featured on colleges & stages globally; The United Nations, The Lincoln Center, Symphony Space, Brooklyn Museum, Princeton, Harvard, Columbia University, Northwestern, The School of the Art Institute, to name a few. K’s bold work continues to excite and challenge audiences. K. has facilitated workshops, presented keynotes, and contributed to panels with various social justice communities. Their contributions are found in The New York Times, Bitch Media, Colorlines, Asian American Literary Review, Al Jazeera English, Poetry Magazine, NYLON, Vogue, The Rumpus, Frontier Poetry, RaceForward, The Advocate, Bitch Magazine, The Academy of American Poets Poem-a-Day, PBS NewsHour, & more.
Recent publications include contributions in the anthologies, Q&A: Queer & Asian in North America (Temple University), Home Is Where You Queer Your Heart (Foglifter), Subject To Change (Sibling Rivalry Press), Outside the XY: Queer Black & Brown Masculinity (Magnus Books), and Writing the Walls Down: A Convergence of LGBTQ Voices (Trans-genre Press).
When The Chant Comes (Topside Press, 2016) is their first collection and More Than Organs (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2020) is their second collection of poetry. Check out their work at kaybarrett.net
Areas of Interest
- movement building
- cultural work and strategy
- community art & performance
- disabled poetics & art
- disability, accessibility, and technology
- race, gender, class, sexuality, and disability
- disability justice
- Asian American culture
- Filipinx culture
- mixed race issues
- queer & transgender justice
- critical food issues
- intersectionality
- poor, working class, & formerly homeless / houseless perspectives
- politics of food & culture