The Realness, The Foundation

Paolo Javier here, Queens Borough Poet Laureate through 2013. Author of several books and chapbooks of poetry, as well as the publisher of a Queens-based tiny press, 2nd Avenue Poetry (2ndavepoetry.com). I'll be posting QPL news, including upcoming readings, workshops, exhibitions, literacy outreach, writing project/s, festivals, and much more. Contact info: queenspoetlaureate@gmail.com. For QPL history, write to phyllis.cohen-stevens@qc.cuny.edu of Queens College Communications, or copy and paste onto your browser the following link to the Borough President's page: http://tinyurl.com/3dmbhzr.

Jun1

Many thanks to Nathaniel Siegel and the fantastic folks behind Howl! Festival for the invite to participate in the grand opening later today, where I’ll be joining a chorus of amazing poets to give a full reading of Ginsberg’s legendary poem in Tompkins Square Park. F R E E. Friday June 1  4:30 PM - 7 PM Tompkins Square Park, South Stage, Enter Through South-West Entrance, Avenue A & 7th Street Led and Orchestrated by poet Bob Holman, the reading of Howl includes a “Greek chorus” of voices… Poets representing The Bowery Poetry Club, The Poetry Project at St. Marks Church in the Bowery, The Nuyorican Poets Cafe, and A Gathering of the Tribes… Including Stephanie Berger, Nina Freeman, David Henderson, Paolo Javier, Vincent Katz, Eliel Lucero, Sheila Maldonado, Ace McNamara, Nancy Mercado, Kristin Prevallet, Joseph D Robbins, Bob Rosenthal, Caroline Rothstein, Judah Rubin, Tahani Salah, Jon Sands, Edwin Torres & Bruce Weber.

Many thanks to Nathaniel Siegel and the fantastic folks behind Howl! Festival for the invite to participate in the grand opening later today, where I’ll be joining a chorus of amazing poets to give a full reading of Ginsberg’s legendary poem in Tompkins Square Park. F R E E.

Friday June 1  4:30 PM - 7 PM


Tompkins Square Park, South Stage, Enter Through South-West Entrance, Avenue A & 7th Street


Led and Orchestrated by poet Bob Holman, the reading of Howl includes a “Greek chorus” of voices… Poets representing The Bowery Poetry Club, The Poetry Project at St. Marks Church in the Bowery, The Nuyorican Poets Cafe, and A Gathering of the Tribes… Including Stephanie Berger, Nina Freeman, David Henderson, Paolo Javier, Vincent Katz, Eliel Lucero, Sheila Maldonado, Ace McNamara, Nancy Mercado, Kristin Prevallet, Joseph D Robbins, Bob Rosenthal, Caroline Rothstein, Judah Rubin, Tahani Salah, Jon Sands, Edwin Torres & Bruce Weber.

2 notes

May26

May25

Live Stream of Pattern Variants Installation, 5/24-26

Check out the video of our group collabo yesterday: 

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/pattern-variants-new-york-edition-ac-institute-nyc

We continue later this evening from 6-9 (EST), replete with a group reading which will be captured on audio by our curator, and then we wrap things up tomorrow morning from 10-1 pm. Hope you’ll tune in if you’re around your computer at all during these times, or, even better, drop by the gallery and say hi to the group.

May22

Our Pattern Variants experiment comes full circle this weekend. F R E E.  

Our Pattern Variants experiment comes full circle this weekend. F R E E.  

May18

The brilliant poet, critic, teacher, visual artist, sculptor, publisher, and activist Jill Magi engages with The Feeling Is Actual.

“This is not a book to prove anything about the merits or cultural complexities of any particular ethnicity. Because the family, defined in whatever ways we would like, will always have the last laugh behind closed doors, regardless of who is or is not convinced of their humanity on the other side of that threshold. Because the beloved is always the other with whom we most want to merge. These are political poems and love poems, but not along the lines of liberal feminism or identity politics: the loving is not political because it is so framed, just as the subject who is differentiated here refuses politicization and policing by looking/writing not just back, but at times, away. A way. No voice in these pages is concerned with equality and sameness, a unity of cause, and because of this, Paolo queers ethnicity: a Filipino artist can simultaneously crack a joke, crack up laughing, and crack a racialized silence. All with cool style—one look at this book tells you so.”

I’m too self-conscious/speechless at the moment to come up with an adequate  response to Jill’s generous and compassionate and impassioned reading of my book, so instead I’ll encourage folks to read her books and her blog—both among my most trusted of maps at the intersections of poetry and art and the world today.

1 notes

May16

My recent book, The Feeling Is Actual, on display at La Guardia Community College in Long Island City, Queens. Grateful to Trace Peterson for the pic. TFIA is in its second printing, happy to report! For those interested in a copy, SPD Books would be your best option (in the U.S.). And thanks for the continued support!

My recent book, The Feeling Is Actual, on display at La Guardia Community College in Long Island City, Queens. Grateful to Trace Peterson for the pic. TFIA is in its second printing, happy to report! For those interested in a copy, SPD Books would be your best option (in the U.S.). And thanks for the continued support!

2 notes

Really pained to hear of comics maestro Tony DeZuniga’s passing on May 11th. I consider myself an even bigger reader of comics than of poetry, and as a kid growing up in the Philippines back in the day, I would obsess over the horror titles put out by DC that featured the brilliant artwork of the Filipino Invasion—a group of young illustrators from Manila guided by Tony DeZuniga, Alex Nino, and Alfredo Alcala (who went on to collaborate with Alan Moore on his celebrated run of  Swamp Thing). I only made the Filipino connection when I picked up a copy of this DC Showcase Presents omnibus and noticed the abundance of Pinoy names in practically every re-printed comics title page. I pay homage to Tony and his co-invaders’ legacy in the third section of my recent book The Feeling Is Actual, which features a collaged poem/ars poetica that wears the influence of komiks proudly. Be at peace, Manong Tony.

Really pained to hear of comics maestro Tony DeZuniga’s passing on May 11th. I consider myself an even bigger reader of comics than of poetry, and as a kid growing up in the Philippines back in the day, I would obsess over the horror titles put out by DC that featured the brilliant artwork of the Filipino Invasion—a group of young illustrators from Manila guided by Tony DeZuniga, Alex Nino, and Alfredo Alcala (who went on to collaborate with Alan Moore on his celebrated run of  Swamp Thing). I only made the Filipino connection when I picked up a copy of this DC Showcase Presents omnibus and noticed the abundance of Pinoy names in practically every re-printed comics title page. I pay homage to Tony and his co-invaders’ legacy in the third section of my recent book The Feeling Is Actual, which features a collaged poem/ars poetica that wears the influence of komiks proudly.

Be at peace, Manong Tony.

1 notes #Tony DeZuniga. #Comics. #Komiks. #Jonah Hex.

May15

May14

May13