QUEENSBOUND 2018 - All photos courtesy Dawn Siff

QUEENSBOUND TIMELINE

QUEENSBOUND is a collaborative poetry project by, for, and about Queens. From Long Island City all the way to Jamaica, the poems of QUEENSBOUND map the neighborhoods and the vibrancy and diversity of the borough, embedding audio recordings from leading Queens poets and writers on a subway map, designed by Kyle Richard. Founded by poet KC Trommer in 2018, the project has grown over the past six years to include poems for half of the station stops in Queens. Access the full audio and individual recordings on SoundCloud. The map lives on our website, QUEENSBOUND.

QUEENSBOUND 2024 launched its much-anticipated 4th edition in February 2024. Featuring the work of 15 new poets, QUEENSBOUND 2024 has expanded its artistic horizons to include 60 contributors in total, drawing from Queens’ many communities to include poems from every corner of the borough. From channeling Hip Hop beats in Jamaica to birding in Forest Park to losing love on a corner of Broadway in Astoria, each poem in the latest release is a unique narrative that adds to the collective story of this multifaceted borough.

Since its inception in 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. This year’s edition introduces poems presented in four languages other than English—Japanese, Nepali, Spanish, and Ukrainian—accompanied by their English translations. The 2024 contributors, a blend of emerging and seasoned poets: 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.

QB24 Editorial Board members curated this edition: Sherese Francis, Jared Harél, Abeer Y. Hoque, Meera Nair, and KC Trommer. We are grateful to have received a grant from Flushing Town Hall to support this edition. Our 2024 fiscal sponsor is Chhaya. We are grateful to both for making this edition possible. The project will have a celebratory launch of the project in early March 2024 with a train reading featuring 2024 contributors. For more information about this event, please contact QUEENSBOUND founder KC Trommer at kctrommer(at)gmail(dot)com.

For QUEENSBOUND 2024, the project welcomed two new members to our board: Sherese Francis and Meera Nair. Continuing board members include Jared Harel, Abeer Hoque, and KC Trommer. Our 2024 edition is supported by an Arts Grant from Flushing Town Hall, using funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, Statewide Community Regrants Program (formerly the Decentralization program) with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature, and administered by Flushing Town Hall. Our fiscal sponsor is Chhaya. This edition benefited greatly from the contributions of audio producer Tim Pogo.

QUEENSBOUND 2021 The 2021 edition celebrates and reflects on Queens during the pandemic, reaching the beaches of the Rockaways, the coffee shops of Astoria, the quiet skies above JFK, and the streets of Jackson Heights as they fill again with language and with carts piled with mango slices in Ziplocks. 2021 contributors are the borough’s emerging and esteemed poets: Philip F. Clark, Noelle de la Paz, Matthew Hittinger, Marcia B. Loughran, Jimena Lucero, Yasmin Adele Majeed, Nadia Misir, Shams A. Momin, Richard Jeffrey Newman, Nikay C. Paredes, Bino A. Realuyo, and Spencer Reece. This year’s edition includes our first poem in a language other than English, Shams A. Momin’s “Queens,” recorded in both Bengali and English. QUEENSBOUND 2021 selections were made by editorial board members Nadia Q. Ahmad, Abeer Y. Hoque, Jared Harél, Joseph O. Legaspi, and KC Trommer.

QUEENSBOUND 2020 For QUEENSBOUND 2020, contributors and editorial board members Abeer Y. Hoque, Jared Harél, Joseph O. Legaspi, and founder KC Trommer have invited new contributors to the project, including Nadia Q. Ahmad, Amy M. Alvarez, Pichchenda Bao, Ryan Black, Nana Brew-Hammond, Francisco Delgado, Ariel Francisco, Ellen Hagan, Kimiko Hahn, Robert Ostrom, Bushra Rehman, Sahar Romani, Jackie Sherbow, Mariahedessa Ekere Tallie, and Sweta Srivastava Vikram.

QUEENSBOUND 2019 In 2019, QUEENSBOUND partnered with Fractured Atlas for fiscal sponsorship and we formed an editorial board, consisting of Abeer Y. Hoque, Joseph O. Legaspi, Jared Harél, and founder KC Trommer. We did this to think about how we could work together, with an idea that we would one day be able to feature a poem for each station stop in Queens, doing some train readings along the way. Website developer Lexi Namer has joined QUEENSBOUND and is developing a dedicated site for the project. Award-winning audio producer and editor Ann Heppermann will be recording and editing audio for us in 2020.

QUEENSBOUND 2018 Reading and Site Launch - 11/3 at 2 pm - The 7 train, first car On November 3, 2018, the QUEENSBOUND project launched with a reading on the 7 line and reception at the Queens Museum. Some of the leading writers and poets of Queens, including Rosebud Ben-Oni, Malcolm Chang, Catherine Fletcher, Sherese Francis, Jared Harél, Nicole Haroutunian, Abeer Hoque, Safia Jama, Paolo Javier, Joseph O. Legaspi, Ananda Lima, Maria Lisella, Vikas K. Menon, Belal Mobarak, Meera Nair, Maria Terrone, and curator and host KC Trommer, read original work on the 7 train, beginning at Vernon Blvd Jackson Av stop, before stepping off at Mets-Willets Point and heading over to The Queens Museum for a reception. The event concluded with a song which included lines from every poem in the launch from Adam DeGraff and Tyler Burba, hosts of the reading series Kith & Kin. The excellent idea to present a reading on the train was the suggestion of Jackson Heights artist Deborah Wasserman.