Name: Selections from We Call Them Beautiful by KC Trommer by KC Trommer
Duration: 8 min 53 s
Description: Included here: "First Map," "We Call Them Beautiful," "The Cyclone," "Scylla, Dragging at the Hounds," "7 to 46th Street/Bliss," "Fear Not, Mary," "Everything Falls Through Me," and "Gauntlet."

allia abdullah-matta (“mott ave,” Mott Avenue/Far Rockaway - A) is a poet and Professor of English at CUNY LaGuardia. She writes about the culture, and history of Black women and explores the presence of Black bodies and voices in fine art and poetry. Her poetry has been published in Newtown Literary, Promethean, Marsh Hawk Review, Mom Egg Review, Vox, Global City Review, and the Jam Journal Issue of Push/Pull. Her do-si-do double chapbook, washed clean & blues politico was published by harlequin creatures (hcx) 2021. She is working on a poetry/hybrid collection of poems and images entitled blackprint.

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allia abdullah-matta - “mott ave,” Mott Avenue/Far Rockaway - A | QUEENSBOUND 2024

Jared Beloff (“The World to Come,” Kew Gardens Union Turnpike - E) is the author of Who Will Cradle Your Head (ELJ Editions, 2023). He is the editor of the Marvel-inspired poetry anthology, Marvelous Verses (Daily Drunk, 2021) and has been a peer reviewer for Whale Road Review since 2021. His work can be found at Night Heron Barks, Baltimore Review, River Mouth Review, The Shore, Contrary Magazine and elsewhere. You can find him on Twitter @Read_Instead and his website www.jaredbeloff.com.

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Jared Beloff - “The World to Come,” Kew Gardens Union Turnpike - E | QUEENSBOUND 2024

Joe Gross (“Beatitude,” Flushing-Main Street - 7) is a bookseller, poet, translator, and author of the prize-winning chapbook Lest We All Get Clipped (Ghostbird Press, 2023). His work has been anthologized in Eating Alone: Essays & Reflections (Clotheslines Press, 2023) and the pearl (Wyeth Renwick, 2023) and has appeared in KtB Magazine, Twin Pies Literary, VIA, the tide rises, the tide falls, HORNS, petrichor, Four Way Review, Fugitives & Futurists, and la piccioletta barca. He holds an MFA from Queens College, CUNY, where he was co-editor of Armstrong Literary. Find him on Twitter @komradekapybara and @joegrosspoet on Instagram.

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Originals

Joe Gross - “Beatitude,” Flushing-Main Street - 7 | QUEENSBOUND 2024

Nathalie Handal (“Crossing Broadway,” Broadway – N) is described as a “contemporary Orpheus.” She is the author of 10 award-winning books, including Life in a Country Album, winner of the Palestine Book Award; The Republics, lauded as “one of the most inventive books by one of today’s most diverse writers,” winner of the Virginia Faulkner Award for Excellence in Writing and the Arab American Book Award; and Love and Strange Horses, winner of the Gold Medal Independent Publisher Book Award. Her work has appeared in Vanity Fair, Guernica, The Guardian, The New York Times, The Nation, and The Irish Times. Handal is the recipient of awards from the PEN Foundation, Lannan Foundation, Fondazione di Venezia, Centro Andaluz de las Letras, and the Africa Institute. She is professor  at NYU, and writes the literary travel column, “The City and the Writer” for Words without Borders magazine. @nathaliephandal

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Nathalie Handal - “Crossing Broadway” - Broadway – N | QUEENSBOUND 2024

Emily Hockaday (“The Empty Train,” Richmond Hill 104th St – J) is a poet living in Queens with her family and their muppety dog. She writes about ecology, parenting, grief, and chronic illness. Her second collection, In a Body, is forthcoming from Harbor Editions October 2023, and her first, Naming the Ghost, debuted with Cornerstone Press in September 2022. She is the author of six chapbooks and has had poems in anthologies and print and online journals. You can find her on the web at www.emilyhockaday.com or @E_Hockaday.

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Emily Hockaday - “The Empty Train,” Richmond Hill 104th St – J | QUEENSBOUND 2024

Dena Igusti (“sonnet as a survival guide for both versions of this city” -  111 Street A) (they/them) is an Indonesian Muslim writer born and raised in Queens, New York. They are the author of CUT WOMAN (Game Over Books, 2020), which has been listed as a 2023 Perennial Award Winner and Entropy Mag’s Best Of 2020-2021. Their work has been produced and performed at LA Times, The Brooklyn Museum, The Apollo Theater, Converse, and more. They have received support from NYFA, Baldwin for the Arts, Asian American Writer's Workshop, Culture Push, More Arts, NeXt Doc, and more. They are a 2023 A is For... Playwriting Award Winner, 2022 Best of the Net Nominee, and more.

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Dena Igusti - “sonnet as a survival guide for both versions of this city” - 111 Street A  | QB24

Olena Jennings (“Ground Floor, 39th Avenue”/“Перший поверх, 39-та Авеню”- 39th Avenue N - Read by the author in ENGLISH and UKRAINIAN) is the author of the poetry collection The Age of Secrets (Lost Horse Press, 2022) and the chapbook Memory Project. Her novel Temporary Shelter was released in 2021 from Cervena Barva Press. Her translation of Vasyl Makhno’s collection Paper Bridge was released in October 2022 from Plamen Press. Her translation with the author of Yuliya Musakovska's The God of Freedom is forthcoming from Arrowsmith Press. Her textile art has been shown at Bliss on Bliss Art Projects and the NYC Poetry Festival. She is the founder and curator of Poets of Queens. 

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Olena Jennings “Ground Floor, 39th Avenue” and “Перший поверх, 39-та Авеню”- 39th Avenue N | QB24

Rajan Maharjan (“March Conversations with Arlani” and "अर्लानीसित मार्च कुराकानी" - Read by the author in ENGLISH and NEPALI - 88 St -A), a first-generation immigrant from Nepal, who has been living in Queens since 2014. He writes poetry in English, Nepali and Nepal Bhasa, his mother language, also exploring other genres through which he could tell untold stories of his people. His poetry and other works are published in few Nepali and English journals including Newtown Literary and Pratik Magazine. Find him on Twitter at @rjnmhrjn. 

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Rajan Maharjan - “March Conversations with Arlani” and "अर्लानीसित मार्च कुराकानी" - 88 St - A

Welcome to QUEENSBOUND 2024! Since 2018, QUEENSBOUND has showcased the communities of Queens through the words of poets writing poems by, for, and about the borough, all presented on a Queens-line-only subway map. 

Hear all of the 2024 contributors: allia abdullah-matta, Jared Beloff, Joe Gross, Nathalie Handal, Emily Hockaday, Dena Igusti, Olena Jennings, Catherine Kapphahn, Hiromi Kiba, Amy Lemmon, Rajan Maharjan, José Alfredo Menjivar, Enzo Silon Surin, Bruce Whitacre, and Micah Zevin.  

This year’s edition introduces poems presented in four languages other than English—Japanese, Nepali, Spanish, and Ukrainian—accompanied by their English translations. 

Individual poems are shared in the playlist below.

QUEENSBOUND 2024 - Monorail

The poem “Agency,” appears in the excellent, just-released anthology Braving the Body (Small Harbor Publishing, 2024), edited by Nicole Callihan, Pichchenda Bao, and Jennifer Franklin. Get yourself a copy.

Agency by KC Trommer

Included here: "First Map," "We Call Them Beautiful," "The Cyclone," "Scylla, Dragging at the Hounds," "7 to 46th Street/Bliss," "Fear Not, Mary," "Everything Falls Through Me," and "Gauntlet."

We Call Them Beautiful

Selections from We Call Them Beautiful by KC Trommer

Author of the debut poetry collection We Call Them Beautiful (Diode Editions, 2019)
https://www.diodeeditions.com/product-page/we-call-them-beautiful | 

Founder of QUEENSBOUND: www.queensbound.com

Recordings of my published poems and recordings of the work of poets I admire.

Selections from We Call Them Beautiful by KC Trommer

KC Trommer

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