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Anthony Tao

@anthonytao

Book: We Met in Beijing | Poetry from Beijing: anthonytao.substack.com | poetryxmusic.com

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09.10.2023
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Latest posts by Anthony Tao @anthonytao

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I just published a shape poem called "Lantern Festival" for the forthcoming end of the Spring Festival ... after reading it, @sgusbeth.bsky.social sent me this amazing photo she took last March in Beijing. I'll make this into a postcard substack.com/home/post/p-...

28.02.2026 17:00 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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Prometheus’s Fire The Price of Giving Humanity Forbidden Knowledge

"The flame represented our capacity for change, for taking raw materials and reshaping reality according to our will. It was the first technology, and with it came the realization that we didn’t have to accept the world as we found it. We could remake it entirely" substack.com/home/post/p-...

28.02.2026 16:53 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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Translation: After China's Spring Festival Gala, "The Humans Are Worse Off Than The Robots" Responses on Chinese social media to state broadcaster CCTV’s annual Spring Festival Gala last week were less than uniformly rapturous. A deleted post from WeChat public account Selling Apricot Blosso...

Translation: After China's Spring Festival Gala, "The Humans Are Worse Off Than The Robots"

"In the end, are robots becoming more human, or are humans becoming more like draft animals? Or to put it another way: Who’s treated with care in this country, and who’s an expendable resource?"

25.02.2026 00:55 πŸ‘ 12 πŸ” 8 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 1

Just sprinted through Shroud...classic @aptshadow.bsky.social in terms of world-building, the largeness of his imagination is to be envied. He has an uncanny ability to describe the utterly unfamiliar in words you can understand, and then somehow you're suddenly inhabiting alien minds, walking moons

25.02.2026 07:13 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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Writing Myth If you could rewrite your love, would you?

If you could rewrite your love, would you? anthonytao.substack.com/p/writing-myth

22.02.2026 18:23 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
Poetry x Music Band - The Other Side (from album All of Those Times)
Poetry x Music Band - The Other Side (from album All of Those Times) YouTube video by Poetry x Music

The Other Side β€” a @poetryxmusic.bsky.social track conceived in Kangding, finalized in Beijing
www.youtube.com/watch?v=zWb7...

21.02.2026 15:37 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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We Met In Beijing Beijing is a city of multitudes, filled with contradictions and constantly in flux. It is a place for dreamers and schemers, musicians and migrant workers, techies and teachers, cat ladies and cab dri...

WE MET IN BEIJING is now available at Bookazine in Hong Kong, ahead of the lit fest: bookazine.com.hk/products/we-...

21.02.2026 03:16 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 1 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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SPECIAL EVENT | Nightcaps & Narratives An intimate evening of reflection, memory, and storytelling celebrating 25 years of Hong Kong stories.

Participating in this year's #HongKong Literary Festival β€” specifically the March 6 event, Nightcaps & Narratives, with @chinarhyming.bsky.social, @emmapeiyin.bsky.social, Pulitzer winner Hernan Diaz, and Xu Xi: www.eventbrite.hk/e/special-ev...

20.02.2026 03:04 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 1 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

This year's CCTV Spring Festival Gala is robots and AI.

End of Chunwan liveblog

16.02.2026 12:39 πŸ‘ 2 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
Album artwork for "All of Those Times" as a New York subway poster, to promote the album's availability on Spotify, Apple Music, and YouTube Music

Album artwork for "All of Those Times" as a New York subway poster, to promote the album's availability on Spotify, Apple Music, and YouTube Music

Album now available on the major streaming services. poetryxmusic.bandcamp.com @poetryxmusic.bsky.social

15.02.2026 19:48 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 1 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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All of Those Times, by Poetry x Music Band 6 track album

If you could rewrite your love, would you?

Introducing ALL OF THOSE TIMES, an album by Poetry x Music, released today: poetryxmusic.bandcamp.com/album/all-of... #ValentinesDay #poetry #music

14.02.2026 17:53 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
"One Way or Another," a poem by Anthony Tao on Substack

"One Way or Another," a poem by Anthony Tao on Substack

My latest poem asks how much perfidy and desecration we're willing to tolerate anthonytao.substack.com/p/one-way-or...

(The photo is of Jackson Pollock’s "The Deep," via Beijing Minsheng Art Museum's Colors exhibition, which I highly recommend, curated in conjunction w/ @centrepompidou.bsky.social)

14.02.2026 09:27 πŸ‘ 2 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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Opinion | How the World Sees America, With Adam Tooze

"I think we have to be willing to be humble, frankly, in relation to this experience and not quickly extrapolate one way or the other, either our disappointments of ourselves and our glamorization of what they’ve done or the converse"β€”@adamtooze.bsky.social on China: www.nytimes.com/2026/01/30/o...

02.02.2026 09:51 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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The Other Side (from Kangding) Poetry x Music Band is releasing an album.

Getting closer to album release... here's a music video from #Kangding: anthonytao.substack.com/p/the-other-...

28.01.2026 04:14 πŸ‘ 2 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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My journey from foreign correspondent to Uber driver in Trump's America I once documented human displacement and desperation; now I am living it

"Today in America my international experience seems to have little value. Worse, it feels anathema to the values marketed by the ruling class." stevescherer.substack.com/p/my-journey...

22.01.2026 05:00 πŸ‘ 2 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0
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My band Poetry x Music has just set an official release date for our album β€” February 14. "All of Those Times" is now available for pre-order (there's a Chinese edition, too, if you prefer). Check it out: poetryxmusic.bandcamp.com/album/all-of...

11.01.2026 14:01 πŸ‘ 3 πŸ” 1 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

Via Eric Olander: "China’s ability to influence events in Venezuela and elsewhere in Latin America is extremely limited, so the assessment that what happened in Caracas was a blow to Beijing may also be overstated."

09.01.2026 07:45 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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Renee Nicole Good, murdered by ICE, was a prize-winning poet. Here’s that poem. Renee Nicole Good, 37, mother to a six-year-old boy, was murdered earlier today by an ICE agent in Minneapolis, a few blocks from her home. According to the Minnesota Star Tribune: [An ICE agent] s…

lithub.com/renee-nicole...

08.01.2026 05:38 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

This is another angle of CBP murdering a woman in cold blood.

07.01.2026 18:30 πŸ‘ 690 πŸ” 284 πŸ’¬ 37 πŸ“Œ 96
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Our Beijing A reverse poem: Different experiences of the same city.

My first reverse poem, about two different experiences of #Beijing β€”

Like winter birds, like outsiders
Chasing joy, we spin in circles
Untethered, unrestricted, wild,
Bare, our souls drunk...

anthonytao.substack.com/p/our-beijing

30.12.2025 04:05 πŸ‘ 3 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
What Makes a Poem Good?
What Makes a Poem Good? YouTube video by Cole Rooty

"Performatively aloof" is a great phrase from Cole Rooty, a cutting critique of Insta poets, w/ wider application too

Of course, ppl will perform any which way to get attn, esp these days. Perhaps better to be aloof than violent

But poetry can push us toward genuine
www.youtube.com/watch?v=5m_J...

29.12.2025 18:36 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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The Migrating Eel I Met on His Way to the Sargasso Sea By Evan Michael Anderson The first time I ever had sex was a Craigslist hookup against the side of a dumpster behind a Taco Bell in Gentilly. He was just passing through on his way to the Bermuda T…

Evan Michael Anderson wrote quite the short story on @tacobellquarterly.org: tacobellquarterly.org/the-migratin...

29.12.2025 17:02 πŸ‘ 15 πŸ” 8 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 3

So, this is where everyone's been

29.12.2025 17:02 πŸ‘ 7 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 3 πŸ“Œ 1
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Life as a Migrant Food Delivery Rider in Shanghai Making ends meet on $1,064 a month, for a separated family of three

Very cheap cigarettes. How a courier in Shanghai gets by with 7,400 yuan per month with a mortgage and a wife and child: www.pekingnology.com/p/life-as-a-...

29.12.2025 16:49 πŸ‘ 2 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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Fixation on imperial history risks clouding China’s path to modernity, Shiping Tang warned Intellectual closure dressed up as awakening, and a dynasty swap turned into a loyalty test.

"China needs more ppl who care about universal issues, produce universal knowledge, and solve concrete problemsβ€”not self-styled experts and scholars who do little more than chant slogans, stay indifferent to (China’s and others’) problems, and ultimately fool themselves” substack.com/home/post/p-...

29.12.2025 16:45 πŸ‘ 2 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

Thank you, David.

Also, sorry for the late reply

29.12.2025 16:16 πŸ‘ 4 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

#NowPlaying on #SHMUFM:
"Magpie" by Anthony Tao & Liane Halton
#Wordplay
#IrregularFeature
shmu.org.uk/fm

30.09.2025 19:41 πŸ‘ 2 πŸ” 1 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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An amazing night at the Macau Literary Festival featuring Anthony Tao & his band Poetry X Music & the amazing Lisbon Poetry Orchestra and Os Surrealistes, all at the incredible Teatro Dom Pedro V (built 1860) on Largo de Santo Agostinho

30.03.2025 02:54 πŸ‘ 10 πŸ” 1 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0

Thank you for reading

29.12.2025 16:14 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 2 πŸ“Œ 0

@KaiserKuo Long-time listener to the @SinicaPodcast (and @ChinaGSProject !), but listening to your recent chat with Anthony Tao convinced me to subscribe to the substance. I could feel the love for Anthony and Beijing in your voice. Thank you.

12.08.2024 01:23 πŸ‘ 2 πŸ” 1 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0