Episode 99

Oliver de la Paz, Pantoum Beginning and Ending with Thorns

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October 15th, 2025

33 mins 3 secs

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immigrant experience migration exile filipino american literature asian american literature poetic form pantoum diaspora

About this Episode

In this third episode in our series on the pantoum, we read and discuss Oliver de la Paz's "Pantoum Beginning and Ending with Thorns," a poem that draws its inspiration from a visual art object as well as the story of migration that shapes the poetic speaker's lived experience.

To learn more about Oliver de la Paz, visit his website.

If you love this poem as much as we do, please purchase a copy of The Diaspora Sonnets (Liveright Publishing Corporation, 2023), which was long-listed for the 2023 National Book Award in Poetry and a finalist for the 2024 Paterson Poetry Prize. Thanks to Liveright and W. W. Norton for granting us permission to read this poem.