Breakpoint

An award-winning collection of poetry that exquisitely blends technology and the Asian-American experience in what poet Colleen J. McElroy calls "an evocative mixture of sensual experiences, and mathematically infused linguistic patterns."

Elizabeth (Betsy) Aoki is a poet, fiction writer, and video game producer. Her first book, Breakpoint, is a 2019 National Poetry Series Finalist and winner of Tebot Bach's Patricia Bibby First Book Award. Its signature poem, "Slouching like a velvet rope" won the 2021 Auburn Witness Poetry Prize, selected by Jericho Brown.

Entrepreneur and Author Elisa Camahort Page calls BREAKPOINT "a unique techno-literary work" and continues, "Like the very best code, BREAKPOINT is also both clean and beautiful, with no word or command wasted."

Poetry. Asian & American Studies. Technology.

Elizabeth (Betsy) Aoki is a poet, fiction writer and video game producer. Her first poetry collection, Breakpoint was a 2019 National Poetry Series Finalist and published by Tebot Bach as the winner of the Patricia Bibby First Book Award. Its signature poem "Slouching like a velvet rope" won the 2021 Auburn Witness Poetry Prize, selected by Jericho Brown. Aoki has received grants and fellowships from the City of Seattle, Artist Trust Foundation, Jackstraw Writers Program, Clarion West Writers Workshop and Hedgebrook. Her chapbook, Every Vanish Leaves Its Trace (2009), was published by Finishing Line Press. Other publications include Calyx, Hunger Mountain, Nassau Review (winner of the 2015 Writer Award), the Nimrod International Journal of Prose and Poetry, Phoebe, Poetry Northwest, The Seattle Times, Seattle Review, Southern Humanities Review, terrain.org (Letters to America), and Uncanny Magazine. You can find her tweeting at @baoki or contact her via her website at betsyaoki.com.