Rate My Professor Brandon Som

Som’s poetry collections have garnered significant acclaim. Tripas (University of Georgia Press/Georgia Review, 2023) received the 2024 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry and was a finalist for the National Book Award. The work chronicles the voices of his Chicana maternal grandmother, Nana Pastora, who labored for three decades on a Motorola factory line, and his Chinese paternal grandmother, Ng Ng, who managed the family’s corner store, examining labor’s imprint on personal histories and weaving transnational arcs through multilingual expressions. His debut, The Tribute Horse (Nightboat Books, 2015), winner of the Kate Tufts Discovery Award, reflects on his paternal grandfather’s journey from China through Angel Island. In 2025, Som was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship as part of the 100th class of fellows, supporting his forthcoming book exploring intersections of caregiving and artmaking, influenced by American modernist Ruth Asawa’s transnational experiences. At UCSD, he teaches the Intercultural Writing Workshop, where students engage with Black, Indigenous, Latinx, and Asian American writers reclaiming cultural traditions and vernaculars to innovate in verse, providing vital spaces for bilingual students to explore their heritages.