Barbara Jane Reyes

Barbara Jane Reyes was born in 1971 in Manila, Philippines, and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area. She received her undergraduate education at the University of California, Berkeley, and her MFA in poetry at San Francisco State University.

Reyes is the author of six poetry collections: Letters to a Young Brown Girl (BOA Editions, 2020); Invocation to Daughters (City Lights Books, 2017); To Love as Aswang (PAWA Inc., 2015); Diwata (BOA Editions, 2010); Poeta en San Francisco (Tinfish Press, 2005), which received the 2005 James Laughlin Award from the Academy of American Poets; and Gravities of Center (Arkipelago Books, 2003). She is also the author of the essay collection Wanna peek Into My Notebook?: Notes on Pinay Liminality (Paloma Press, 2022).

Three of Reyes’s books, Letters to a Young Brown GirlInvocation to Daughters, and Diwata, were finalists for the California Book Award.

Reyes has taught at Mills College and the University of San Francisco. She currently teaches in the Yuchengco Philippine Studies Program (YPSP) at the University of San Francisco.