A bit about me…

Lauren Ito is a gosei (fifth generation Japanese American) poet and community craftswoman from an island outside Seattle. Her writing explores the tensions of choice and force within identity, inheritance, and home. Lauren’s work has been featured by The San Francisco Public Library, The Seattle Times, Japanese American National Museum, Nomadic Press, and in various performance venues, including the Mission Arts Performance Project, BEAT Museum, and Gears Turning. Her most recent publication is the San Francisco’s Poet Laureate’s series, The City is Already Speaking.

As a 2022 - 2023 an San Francisco Arts Commission Artist Grantee, Lauren is currently co-creating a collective “love letter to ancestors: past, present and future” with artists of the Japanese diaspora. She lives in San Francisco, and can almost always be found by the sea.

Publications Include

• Poem of the Day, The San Francisco Public Library (2020)

• Quiet Lightning (2019)

• This is My Body Anthology, Nomadic Press (2019)

• Japanese American National Museum’s Discover Nikkei (2019)

• The City is Already Speaking Anthology by San Francisco Poet Laureate Kim Shuck (2019)

• Civil Liberties United Anthology (2019)

• Bay Area Generations (2018)

Fellowships and Awards

• San Francisco Arts Commission Artist Grantee (2022)

• Asian Pacific American Cultural Center’s United States of Asian America Festival (2020)

• Asian American Women Arts Association Emerging Curators Fellow (2019-2020)

• The Grotto San Francisco Rooted and Written Fellow (2019)

• Novalia Collective Fellow (2019)

• Japanese American Citizens League/Asian American Advocates Leadership Fellow (2019)

• Santa Clara University Multicultural Center Writing Award (2014)

Performance Features and Curations Include

• ILLUMINATE: An evening of poetry in solidarity with Asian and Asian American communities (2021)

• Literary Speakeasy (2021)

• San Francisco Public Library (2021)

• Kearny Street Workshop: A History of Our Naming with Michelle Peñaloza and Đỗ Nguyên Mai (2019)

• Quiet Lightning Reading Series (2019)

• Alley Cat Books Reading with San Francisco Poet Laureate Kim Shuck (2019)

• Lit Crawl San Francisco (2019)

• This is My Body Book Launch (2019)

• Our Roots Run Deep, Then They Came for Me Museum Exhibit (2019)

• The Fire Thieves Reading Series with San Francisco Poet Laureate (2019)

• Mission Arts Performance Project (2019)

• San Francisco BEAT Museum’s Eves at the Beat (2019)

• National Japanese American Historical Society WAVES Showcase (2019)

• Novalia Collective Showcase: This is My Body (2019)

• Ordinary Villains (2018)

• Bay Area Generations (2018)

• Japanese American Citizens League National Convention (2018)

• Japantown Anniversary Celebration (2018)

• Gears Turning (2018)

• Empowering Womxn of Color Open Mic (2018)