Biography
Jay Gao is a first-year Ph.D. student in the English and Comparative Literature programme researching race, the Asian diaspora, and contemporary poetry and poetics. His work explores innovation and alterity within 20th and 21st century Asian American and British Asian Anglophone poetry. More broadly, he is interested in how to interpret experimental and avant-garde literature at the intersection of politics with aesthetics, material history with form. Originally from Edinburgh, Scotland, he holds degrees from the University of Edinburgh and Brown University.
Jay is also a poet, author, and critic. His debut poetry collection Imperium was published by Carcanet Press in 2022 and is longlisted for the 2023 Runciman Award. He is also the author of three poetry chapbooks. Recently, he was a winner of the 2022 Desperate Literature Prize for Short Fiction and was shortlisted for the 2022 Edwin Morgan Poetry Award. He is also a Contributing Editor at the White Review. Currently, his projects include a debut novel and a second poetry collection.
