Poetry For All

Episode 99: Oliver de la Paz, Pantoum Beginning and Ending with Thorns

October 15th, 2025  |  Season 7  |  33 mins 3 secs

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

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.