Teresa Mei Chuc (Tuệ Mỹ Chúc) is multilingual, was born in Sài Gòn, Việt Nam and fled her Vietnamese homeland with her mother and brother shortly after the American war in Việt Nam, spending three and a half months in a freight boat stranded in the East Sea before being rescued. Her father, who had served in the Army of the Republic of Việt Nam, was imprisoned for nine years in a Việt Cộng "reeducation" camp in the jungles of Northern Việt Nam. Teresa is a mixed Viet with Vietnamese, Yuè 戉 , Taiwanese and Dai Lue ancestry and raised in Buddhist and Taoist traditions. From the age of two and a half, Teresa grew up on unceded Tongva territory in the village area of Hahamongna (Pasadena, California). Poet Laureate Emerita of Altadena, California (Editor-in-Chief) 2018-2020 and a member of the Pasadena Rose Poets since 2016, Teresa Mei Chuc is the author of three full-length collections of poetry, Invisible Light (Many Voices Press, 2018), Keeper of the Winds (FootHills Publishing, 2014) and Red Thread (First edition, Fithian Press, 2012 & Second edition, Shabda Press, 2021) and two poetry chapbooks, Incidental Takes (Hummingbird Press, 2023) and How One Loses Notes and Sounds (Word Palace Press, 2016). Teresa is co-editing the poetry anthology, Convergence: Poetry on Environmental Impacts of War (Scarlet Tanager Books, 2025). Teresa's work is forthcoming in the anthology, Veterans of War, Veterans of Peace II. A fellow and teacher consultant of the Los Angeles Writing Project (a chapter of the National Writing Project), she teaches literature and writing at a public school and works towards decolonizing education for her students. Teresa has a bachelors degree in philosophy, professional teaching credentials in primary and secondary education from California State University, Los Angeles, and a Masters in Fine Arts in Creative Writing (poetry) from Goddard College in Plainfield, Vermont. Teresa's poem, "Eternity in Gaza," was featured in Silkworms Ink's 50th Chapbook Anniversary Chapbook, L, an anthology of international poets and short fiction writers. Teresa’s poetry appears in the anthology, Inheriting the War: Poetry and Prose by Descendants of Vietnam Veterans and Refugees (W.W. Norton & Company, 2017). Teresa is founder and Editor-in-Chief of Shabda Press, a member of Coast to Coast Poetry Press Collective. She is editor of the poetry anthology, Nuclear Impact: Broken Atoms in Our Hands. Teresa Mei Chuc has been a featured poet at Smith College, College of Southern Maryland, University of Indianapolis, University of California Riverside, University of Montana (Creative Writing Conference - Thinking Its Presence: Race & Creative Writing), Los Angeles-Trade Technical College, University of Alaska Southeast, Juneau, Alaska (Waging Peace in Vietnam Exhibit 2022 - Anti-War Poetry & Story Sharing with Teresa Mei Chuc & Doug Rawlings), University of Alaska Southeast in Juneau (2023), NEA Our Town "Poetry Within Reach" - Pasadena Rose Poets Featured Reading presented by the City of Pasadena Cultural Affairs Division and Side Street Project, Pasadena Central Public Library (Donald R. Wright Auditorium), Santa Monica Public Library, Fullerton Public Library, Santa Catalina Branch Library, Studio City Public Library, Allendale Branch Library, Sierra Madre Public Library, Pasadena Central Library, Barnes & Noble Bookstore, Vroman’s Bookstore, Borders Bookstore, Granada Books, Flintridge Bookstore (Rattle Reading Series, Moonday East Reading, and On Writing to Heal: Reading & Panel), Fact & Fiction Bookstore (Missoula, Montana), Shakespeare & Co (Missoula, Montana), Tia Chucha’s Centro Cultural & Bookstore, The Libros Bookstore in Lincoln Heights, Beyond Baroque, Avenue 50 Studio in Highland Park, The Utah Book Festival, The Bridgewater International Poetry Festival, Leimert Park Book Fair, Foothills Poetry Festival, San Gabriel Valley Poetry Festival, The Rapp Salo(o)n, USC Pacific Asia Museum, Bolton Hall Museum, Levantine Cultural Center, Storrier Stearns Japanese Garden, The World Stage in Leimert Park, The Far East Lounge in Little Tokyo: "Poems of Resistance, Poems of Light," LitFest Pasadena - Southland Poets Laureate: A Celebration of Literature, Pasadena City Hall city council meeting (Pasadena Rose Poet reading), Poets & Allies Featured Reading (Pasadena, CA), A Garden of Verses at the Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden, Pasadena Rose Poets at the Huntington Library, Risho Kosei-kai Buddhist Center of Los Angeles Featured Poetry Reading, Reflections/Refractions Poetry Reading - At First Light: The Dawning of Asian Pacific America at the Japanese American National Museum, 2013 AWP Conference (Multicultural Panel of Poet Activists), 2016 AWP Conference (The Asian Face of War Panel & Inheriting the War Anthology Reading), Poets House, The New York City Poetry Festival on Governor’s Island, Steynberg Gallery, CORE Poetry/Performance Series, The Writer's Center (Bethesda, MD), The World Stage in Leimert Park (Poets Stand United Against Racism), 2023 LitFest Pasadena - "Writing from Our Immigrant Hearts" panel, Association for the Study of Literature and Environment (ASLE) Conference 2023 in Portland, Oregon: seven women poets panel, "Poetry, Science, and Reclaiming the Commons: A Reading" (Teresa Mei Chuc -- "Poetry, War, Colonialism, and the Commons"). Teresa has been a featured poet on the following television/radio shows: Literature Radio Show - Sex & Politics (Brooklyn College), Wake Up & Smell the Poetry (HCAM Television, Hopkinton, Massachusetts), Poets Cafe - KPFK 90.7 FM Pacific Radio Los Angeles, ON THE MARGIN - WPFW 89.3 FM (Washington, D.C.), Out of Bounds - WEOS 89.7 FM & 90.3 FM (Geneva, NY) & WSKG 89.3 FM (Binghamton, NY)/90.9 FM (Ithaca, NY). Teresa's poem, "Agent Blue," is featured on Poems on Air Podcasts - Los Angeles Public Library, kicking off Asian American voices during Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month in May 2021. Teresa lead a poetry workshop & conversation, “How We Heal & Transform Ourselves and Society Through Writing,” in Hopkinton, Massachusetts, and she lead a poetry workshop, “Nature as Metaphor,” at the 2016 Wrightwood Literary Festival in Wrightwood, California. In the summer of 2015, Teresa was the featured poet at East and West Languages and Cultures Center in Hanoi, Vietnam and, for the first time, read her poetry in English with Vietnamese translations in her motherland. For National Poetry Month in April 2016, Tricycle Magazine featured Teresa Mei Chuc’s poetry and discussion on the connection between poetry and compassion. Teresa read her poetry and discussed the role of poetry in sparking empathy across difference at the Annenberg Community Beach House in Santa Monica, CA in January 2017. Teresa, along with several other poets of diverse backgrounds, spoke and read on a Poetry & Diversity panel titled "Metaphor or Misappropriation" at the Sierra Madre Library. Teresa's poems appear in RevueLISA e-journal: A Living Anthology on War Memories (https://journals.openedition.org/lisa/12031). Teresa Mei Chuc was the featured reader for Poets in Play sponsored by the ARTS Council of the Southern Finger Lakes in New York and Poets & Writers in September 2020 (zoom). Teresa was one of the readers for a reading from the anthologies California Fire and Water and Fire and Rain: Ecopoetry of California sponsored by Inlandia Institute of Riverside in November 2020 (zoom). Teresa's poem, "Names," was taught at the "Unfolding Identity: Finding Poetry in the Naming of Self" workshop during Tia Chucha's Centro Cultural's 16th Annual Celebrating Words Festival on Saturday, May 29, 2021. Teresa joined the workshop as a guest to read her poems, "Names" and "accents." Teresa spoke and read one of her poems on Monday, May 31, 2021 for the New York City Veterans for Peace 2021 Memorial Day Commemoration--Memorial Day: Remembering All Whose Lives Were Taken by War. Teresa and American veteran Doug Rawlings did a joint reading from their upcoming collaborative poetry collection during the Poetry & Song Soiree Session of the Veterans for Peace 2021 Online Convention. Teresa and Doug Rawlings did a joint poetry reading from their collaborative collection, Cầu Tre/Bamboo Bridge, at the Veterans for Peace 2022 Online Convention: From War Making to Peace Seeking. Teresa's poetry translations from the original Russian language to English have appeared in Aldus, a Journal of Translation. Teresa's poetry was recently published in or forthcoming in the following anthologies: California Fire & Water: A Climate Crisis Anthology (Story Street Press, 2020), When the Virus Came Calling: COVID-19 Strikes America Anthology (Golden Foothills Press, 2020), and Hope through Community: Words and Images in Response to a Global Pandemic Anthology edited by Cheryl Perreault & Cynthia Franca (December 2020). Teresa´s poem, ¨What the U.S. Calls Counter-Terrorism: The Phoenix Program" appears in The Night Heron Barks. Teresa's new book in collaboration with Doug Rawlings, Cầu Tre/Bamboo Bridge: Conversations between a Vietnamese Boat Refugee and an American Veteran of the Việt Nam War - Told in Poetry and Prose was published by Kellscraft Studio in fall 2021. Teresa's first collection of poetry, Red Thread, was re-published and re-released in 2021! Teresa's poem, "Hard Conversations," appears in the anthology Flowers Blooming from Scars (Korean Literature Society of America, 2022), marking the 30th anniversary of the April 29, 1992 LA Riots. Teresa's poem, "Rescued Tigers," is forthcoming in The Global South (Indiana University Press, 2023). Her poems appear online in Issue 9 of Locavore Lit LA in April 2023. Teresa participated on the seven women poets panel, "Poetry, Science, and Reclaiming the Commons: A Reading," in the Association for the Study of Literature and Environment (ASLE) Conference July 9-12, 2023 in Portland, Oregon. She read and discussed her poems on "Poetry, War, Colonialism, and the Commons." The panel speakers were Teresa Mei Chuc, Allison Adelle Hedge Coke, Lucille Lang Day, Ann Fisher-Wirth, Catherine Gurin, Jasmine Elizabeth Smith, and Angela Trudell Vasquez. Teresa presented her poetry chapbook, Incidental Takes, at the 2024 Việt Book Fest Book Market Event at Bowers Museum in Santa Ana, CA. Teresa will be sharing her poetry during the 2024 Veterans for Peace Virtual Convention: Demilitarize. Decolonize. Teresa's poem, "accents," was made into a Vietnamese/English dual-language children's book published in 2023 by Stories of Vietnam, an organization whose mission is to help the Vietnamese diaspora learn their native language and culture through free access to dual-language children's books. Teresa sits on the Beyond Baroque Board of Trustees and is Chair of the Youth Engagement Committee. Teresa also sits on the Board of Directors for VCP SoCal Poets. She recently joined the Consequence Forum team as a Nonfiction Reader. Teresa's poetry book, The Indivisible Body of Reality, is forthcoming in 2026!
