"i have lived long and short enough
to remember the homegirls who
danced non-stop until three a.m.
the moon a parabola to our party"
Janice publishes work in poetry, creative non-fiction, and fiction.
POETRY
"the diaspora almighty" TLDTD Journal: A biannual journal for Filipino poets and poetry, February 2022.
Letters to Young Poetry Readers, "Dear Janice Lobo Sapigao 2021," Poets.org, Dear Poet Series, Fall 2021.
"Salmon Pink Coleus," SWWIM Miami, June 2021.
"Therapist's Recommendation," Ghost City Journal, May 2021.
"There Will Be No Funeral," poets.org, January 2021.
"San José, California," The Poetry Project, September 2020
"Bill Pay," Split This Rock, The Quarry: A Poetry Database, August 2020
"Uncles," The Academy of American Poets, May 2020
"silhouette," The Academy of American Poets, May 2020 & San José Museum of Art, 11th Annual Poetry Invitational, April 2020.
"Therapist's Recommendation," read at Janice's Poet Laureate appointment ceremony on Feb. 10th, 2020 @ Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors Meeting, San José, CA.
"the union," published in microchips for millions (PAWA, Inc.), 2016
"America is in the Heart Disease" & "[all talk indistinctly]," No Tender Fences: An Anthology of Immigrant & First-Generation American Poetry
"Bed Bug Bites" & "Second Generation," Marsh Hawk Review
"Pangasinan for Doking," Apogee Journal
"There Will Be No Funeral," "Straight Hair," "Nagnísit," "Uncles," & "Ode to Rose Quartz," Drunk in a Midnight Choir
"Two Shades of Brown" & "offerings for homegirls," Luna Luna Magazine, August 2017
"A Map of the Philippines," Waxwing Literary Journal
"Contrastify" & "Apostrophize," Underblong Issue 1
"For Filipina/x Americans Who See Themselves Thru Anthony Bourdain," The Offing
"the games," The Margins, Asian American Writers' Workshop
"the tech museum of innovation 2003," "the tech museum of innovation 2006," "the tech museum of innovation 2012," Cheers From the Wasteland
“Felipe," Talking Back & Looking Forward: An Educational Revolution in Poetry and Prose, Rowman & Littlefield
“My Hip Hop Creation Story," Empire of Funk: Hip Hop and Representation in Filipina/o America, Cognella Academic Publishing
"Stuffed Animal Duwende," Kuwento: Lost Things, An Anthology of New Philippine Myths, Carayan Press
"An Invocation After Haiyan in News Reports," Verses Typhoon Yolanda, Meritage Press & Center for Art + Thought
"Alecia," AngryAsianMan.com
ESSAYS
"More Politics Than Poetry," Poetry Foundation, July 2021.
"Cancer is a Day That Never Ends," Joyland, December 2020
"Poetry is Activism," Silicon Valley Creates Blog, June 2020.
"Hip Hop Shows Mastery of English (But English is Not the Master of Hip Hop)," Timeless, Infinite Light
"Let Me See You See Me Back," Timeless, Infinite Light
"Sound is Not The Only Way to Experience Music," Timeless, Infinite Light
"Nayyirah Waheed, Who Are You? We Love You," The Operating System
"Me and the Little Girl Inside Me," Positively Filipino
"And I Want a Sixth, or a Toss-Up," The FanZine
“Meetings,” Nexus: Complicating Community and Centering the Self, Cognella Academic Publishing
FICTION
"Mistaken: A Choose-Your-Own Adventure Hip Hop Star Story," Anthropoid
excerpt Where Did You Get All Those English From? in TAYO Literary Magazine
REVIEWS
"Apertures, Wishes, and Questions: A Review and Commendation for all of the Loves and People in Jason Magabo Perez's This is for the mostless," Hyphen
"Gabi, A Girl on Our Time: A Review of Gabi, A Girl in Pieces by Isabel Quintero," Silicon Valley De-Bug
"The Hate U Give Doesn’t Give Up on the Storytellers: A Review," Silicon Valley De-Bug
"Navigating the Ineffable: A Review of Prageeta Sharma's Undergloom," Jacket2
"Poetics of Critical Cartography: A Review of Sebastian Agudelo's Each Chartered Street," Jacket2
"A Panic That Can Still Come Upon Me by Peter Gizzi," The Volta Blog
on my work
"The Tracks of Our Tears: On Janice Sapigao's Like a Solid to a Shadow," by Leslie Patron, Queen Mob's Teahouse
"Disrupting Silicon Valley in Janice Lobo Sapigao’s microchips for millions," by Yasmeen Adele Majeed, Ploughshares
RESIDENCIES & WORKSHOPS
Attendee
Vermont Studio Center, TBD
Kundiman Retreat, Poetry, Summer 2016 and Summer 2018
Voices of Our Nation (VONA) Writers of Color Conference, Summer 2018 and Summer 2011
Philippine American Writers and Artists Workshops, Summer 2010
Teacher / Guest Writer
Banteay Srei, May 2020
Santa Clara High School, November 2019
& UC Riverside, San José State University, Galeria de la Raza
BLURBS
Split by Denise Benavides (Kórima Press, 2016)
What’s a poem to god? What’s a god to a mom? What’s a parent to a non-believer? Benavides summons these questions with a sharpened rosary dipped in blood ink, half relic and half stake that meets the eyes with each poem that drives it into the heart of the matter: a riot girl is weaponized cavalry in herself. In a testament of poems wrestling the multitudes and facets of religion, daughterhood, sex, and ________ through candid language, Benavides’s collection is an amalgamation of intense empathy and sorrow – not as a cause for alarm – but as intent to move and reclaim Self. These poems reveal to the lovers and past selves the balancing of one’s inner light and darkness. The poems ask exhuming question-statements and answer back regarding our honest-to-goodness ungodliness.
Susurros A Mi Padre by Erick Sáenz (The Operating System, 2018)
"Let this book show you an interrogation and migration of story, where story is made of secrets: from Monterrey to Los Angeles to San José and back; through wanting to know one's father, and ultimately, oneself. In this candid, real-time narrative, Erick Sáenz sits with the discomfort and mystery of words in Spanish and English that [pass time], where time is a summation of moments, questions, memories; and where passing is actively standing watch at a life that’s yours. Call it disenfranchised grief—or listen when he asks, 'What is it like growing up landlocked?'—or when he affects, 'Este es mi elogia, papi' with the crushing beauty of a confession. Sáenz writes fatherlessness, restlessness, and distance and othering as double consciousness. This story is a slow, heartfelt corrido unveiling the poetics of loss.
We Remain Traditional by Sylvia Chan (University Press of Colorado, 2018)
“Sometimes, what I hear, I believe.” Sylvia Chan’s We Remain Traditional is a score of sound upon breakwater. Commanding and sifting through language the way a musician harnesses emotion and craft into playing an instrument and bellowing, Chan produces documentation of music in the travels and revels of everyday life: “my history gets lost in a war” turntables with “I wonder which pop icon will outspeak the other.” Music as the migration of sound is multiplied present tense: “what’s cleft is an introspective singer knowing how feet feel,” and “my mother’s Singer, a final sales item from Sears.” Chan chooses, names—in lyrics broken and pieced by time, practice, Adam, and Chinese/American histories—how music is a patterned force of many moments stacked, moving forward, and pulling back."
excerpt of "Foreword" to delilah's daughter by Kim Davalos
This book is for all of the women that a woman could possibly be in her lifetime. For all of the women who can grow and grow girls into women or not, into elders, raise them, and see how they can live–full, joyous, blooming, changing. Kimberly Davalos writes with a tender ferocity that calls on you to reflect, allows you in on her process of self-love, self-growth, self-care, and struggle–and how lucky we are to witness a genuine, kind soul this way. Davalos’s poetry is proof that young girls and women of color can become light, magic, power, and beauty, in growing up and growing older (“good thing / i am many women”).
We Are No Longer Babaylan by Elsa Valmidiano (New Rivers Press, 2020)
Every word of We Are No Longer Babaylan brilliantly hooks with and hinges on magic, and the magic of possibility. Valmidiano frames the ancient, persistent pain that hammers and chisels Filipina American knowledge with ritual and unrest. She articulates screams and silences, exalting that in order to engage with the Filipina, female, and storied being is to see her in all of her palimpsests. Her prose about the mysteries of waiting, family in manifold forms, and Pinay friendship, features a heartlfelt, phenomenal voice declaring, time and time again, women’s bodies–of writing, of work, of ceremony–theirs to narrate and protect.
INTERVIEWS
"The Makings of a Fashion-Forward Future: An Interview with Caroline Mangosing," TAYO Literary Magazine.
"Community Spotlight: No Worries Filipino Vegan Cuisine," BakitWhy.com
on my work
"Episode 39: Janice Sapigao / Writer, Poet, Professor, Creative & Publication ProcessWW39 – Janice Sapigao / Writer, Poet, Professor, Creative & Publication Process," The Filipino Garage Podcast on Apple Podcasts, February 2020
"Oral History Interview: Janice Sapigao" with Asian American and Pacific Islander Activism Oral History Archive, Cal State University, East Bay, led by Prof. Janice Tanemura, November 2018.
"Janice Sapigao: Writing on the Filipina and San José Experience," Valley of Heart's Resistance, with Katherine Nasol, August 2018.
"Janice Sapigao: 'I find more life and truth in the not knowing.'" Speaking of Marvels, by William Woolfitt, February 2018.
"Women to Watch: Janice Sapigao," KQED Arts, with Rachel Myrow, July 2017.
"Women of Wednesday: Janice Lobo Sapigao on Writing Toward the Future," Women of Wednesday, with Olivia Cole, July 2017.
"Publishing Roundtable: Debut Poetry Books: Kenji Liu, Angela Peñaredondo, and Janice Lobo Sapigao" in TAYO Literary Magazine
"the clean room," "the praise," "the cry," Action, Yes!
excerpts from like a solid to a shadow, TAGVVERK, April 2016.
"Oblivious meets Janice Sapigao," September 2015.
"Open Mic series in Filipinotown – Janice Sapigao interview, Sunday Jump," Echo Park Forums, September 2014.
OTHER
"San José's Sapigao Named Poet Laureate," Mercury News
Poets & Writers Directory Profile
