A year of confinement and circumscription, 2020 has altered New Yorkers’ relationship to place. KC Trommer, Nadia Q. Ahmad and Jared Harél are better equipped than most to capture this state of heightened site-specificity. The three writers are, respectively, the founder and board members of Queensbound, a collaborative effort to showcase poets from the eponymous borough. Launched in 2018, the project maps individual writings onto subway stops throughout Queens, reframing the connective tissue of public space as something with a deeper emotional resonance. Conceived as a blend of audio recordings, in-situ readings, and other live events, like most things this year, Queensbound has lived more online than in physical space. Yet to hear Trommer, Ahmad, and Harél tell it, the spirit of public space — those negotiations and celebrations of difference; those struggles and joys of common pursuit — remains much more than a literary device. Along with works by Nana Ekua Brew-Hammond, Meera Nair, and Malcolm Chang, we hear about what it means to bring poetry to the people of Queens, whether by train or web browser.
Queensbound participants exit the 7 train to head towards the Queens Museum for a commemorative event, 2018. Photo by Josh Steinbauer
Nadia Q. Ahmad is a poet, writer, and editor based in Queens. Her work has been published in The Shoreline Review, Newtown Literary, AAWW Open City, and The Margins. She is a VONA/Voices and Kweli Journal workshop alum. Having been involved in various community initiatives in arts and culture in New York City, Ahmad has worked as a Program Associate at the Asian American Writers’ Workshop and as Editorial Fellow at Poets & Writers.
Jared Harél is the author of the debut poetry collection, Go Because I Love You (Diode Editions, 2018). He’s been awarded the Stanley Kunitz Memorial Prize from American Poetry Review and the William Matthews Poetry Prize from Asheville Poetry Review. Recent poems of his have appeared in 32 Poems, Four Way Review, Harvard Review Online, Ploughshares, and The Sun. Harél lives with his family in Queens.
KC Trommer is the author of the debut poetry collection We Call Them Beautiful (Diode Editions, 2019) and the chapbook The Hasp Tongue (dancing girl press, 2014). Founder of the collaborative audio project QUEENSBOUND, she is the Assistant Director of Communications at NYU Gallatin. She lives in Jackson Heights, Queens, with her son.
