Bao Phi

Bao Phi is a Vietnamese American spoken word artist, writer and community activist living in Minnesota. 2Early life and education Bao Phi was born Thien-bao in Saigon, Vietnam, the youngest son of a mostly Vietnamese mother and a Chinese Vietnamese father. He grew up in the Phillips neighborhood of South Minneapolis near the Little Earth housing projects. Phi attended South High School and began performing his poetry when competing on the South High speech team in the Creative Expression category in the early 1990s. He attended and graduated from Macalester College, where he was encouraged to pursue creative writing by Native American Literature professor Diane Glancy. He worked as a pizza delivery boy, a maintenance worker in a supermarket and in the restaurant industry. 2Poetry, activism and literature Phi won the Minnesota Grand Poetry Slam twice. He also won two poetry slams at the Nuyorican Poets Café in New York. He is the first Vietnamese American man to have appeared on HBO's Russell Simmons Presents Def Poetry, and the National Poetry Slam Individual Finalists Stage, where he placed 6th overall out of over 250 national slam poets. Phi has been a featured performer at numerous venues and schools locally and nationally, from the Nuyorican Poet's Café to the University of California, Berkele