QUEENSBOUND is an audio poetry project by, for, and about Queens. Founded in 2018, QUEENSBOUND seeks to connect writers across the borough, showcase and develop Queens literature, and reflect the borough back to itself. The project was on a pandemic-induced hiatus but will return in 2024 with new poems from writers who live and work across the borough.
Our last major QUEENSBOUND collaboration was a commission from Onassis USA and the Queens Museum, “In the Here and Now,” a video of an exquisite corpse poem written by several QUEENSBOUND poets. Our 2020 edition was the first to include a poem in a language other than English, Shams A. Momin’s “Queens,” a poem in Bengali and English. Our 2024 edition will include poems in Nepali, Japanese, Spanish, and Ukrainian, along with their English translations.
To date, the project has been supported by individual donations and by Flushing Town Hall, the Queens Council on the Arts, the Queens Museum, and Onassis USA. The project has been a finalist for a Creative Capital Award, an NYU Digital Seed Humanities Grant, and the David Prize. In 2023, our fiscal sponsor was Chhaya.
Follow us on IG at @_queensbound_.
For more info, contact us at queensboundproject@gmail.com.
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2024
allia abdullah-mata, 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
2021
Phillip 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
2020
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
2018
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 KC Trommer
2024
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.
2020
QUEENSBOUND 2020 launched in April 2020 in honor of National Poetry Month, featuring 16 new contributors and the work of the 17 contributors from the 2018 edition. Web design by Lexi Namer; our 2020 logo was designed by Kyle Richard.
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.
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.
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.
QUEENSBOUND 2024 will launch on March 2 at 5 pm with a reading on the Flushing-bound 7 train. Details here.
QUEENSBOUND 2024 Press Release
To learn about the history of the QUEENSBOUND project, vist https://www.kctrommer.com/queensbound.
“In the Here and Now” for Onassis USA and The Queens Museum - May 2020, featuring (in order of appearance) KC Trommer, Jared Harel, Abeer Y. Hoque, Nana Brew-Hammond, Rosebud Ben-Oni, Nadia Q. Ahmad, Pichchenda Bao, Robert Ostrom, Joseph O. Legaspi
CULTURE MAPPING 2020 “Archiving Local History” Panel Lightning Talk - KC Trommer (QUEENSBOUND Founder)
QUEENSBOUND at the Backlot Festival - September 21, 2019 at Mars Astoria
QUEENSBOUND and Queens Writers Resist - March 16, 2019 at Terraza 7
QUEENSBOUND with Kith and Kin - February 3, 2019 at Q.E.D.
Reception at The Queens Museum
QUEENSBOUND Launch and 7 Train Reading - November 3, 2018 with Video by Trown Dowd
Telling the Stories of Queens
QUEENSBOUND is a collaborative audio project founded in 2018 that seeks to connect writers across the borough, showcase and develop a literature of Queens, and reflect the borough back to itself. This is poetry for the people online and in public spaces.
For more info, contact us at queensboundproject@gmail.com
Click on a green subway stop to hear a poem.
© 2020 QUEENSBOUND. Site by Lexi.