Brandon Som


Brandon Som is an American poet. His collections include The Tribute Horse and Tripas: Poems, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 2024. He is an associate professor of literature and creative writing at the University of California, San Diego.

Life and career

Som was born and raised in Phoenix, Arizona. He is of Mexican and Chinese descent.
He received his Bachelor of Arts at Arizona State University, Master of Fine Arts at the University of Pittsburgh in 2002, and PhD at the University of [Southern California] in 2014. From 2013 to 2014, Som was a dissertation fellow at the Center for Transpacific Studies at University of [Southern California academics#Dana and David Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences|USC Dornsife].
Som's chapbook of poetry, Babel's Moon, was published in 2011. His first complete collection of poems, The Tribute Horse, was published in 2014, winning the The [Kingsley and Kate Tufts Poetry Awards#The Kate Tufts Discovery Award|Kate Tufts Discovery Award] in 2015.
Som's next collection, Tripas: Poems, was published by the University of Georgia Press in 2023. It was a finalist for the National [Book Award for Poetry] and won the Pulitzer Prize. The Pulitzer credit said the book "deeply engages with the complexities of the poet's dual Mexican and Chinese heritage, highlighting the dignity of his family's working lives, creating community rather than conflict".

Poetry