Kathleen Ma: Hoyt Jacobs Poetry PrizeCongratulations to Kathleen Ma, who has just been selected for the Hoyt Jacobs Poetry Prize by Alice Quinn, former Executive Director of the Poetry Society of America! Alice Quinn is the former Director of the Poetry Society of America and an adjunct professor at Columbia University’s Graduate School of the Arts. She was poetry editor at The New Yorke from 1987-2007 and at Alfred A. Knopf, Publishers, from 1976-1986. She is the editor of Edgar Allan Poe & The Juke-Box: Uncollected Poems, Drafts, and Fragments by Elizabeth Bishop, and she is currently at work editing Bishop’s journals and notebooks. Quinn had this to say about Ma’s prize-winning packet of poems: The element of play and surprise is sometimes underestimated in creative work, but it is nonetheless a large part of what draws readers to reread something that has affected or moved or startled them, and I found myself rereading Kathleen Ma’s sequence of poems over and over because I was charmed by swerves and turns of phrase and by her sense of play. It may be that she has surprised herself writing these poems because she set out to hone her skills as a translator. But whatever means to the avenue, she seems delighted to be on this path. Why does the sentence “Breakfast will no longer be served in the bicycle factory.” delight? Why does the gleam that shows up several times in this packet gleam? Perhaps because it leads to a summary statement as memorable as this: “A red gleam swarms the rehearsalon the street    where we are enablingan afternoon to grow from its roots until the end of time!” And the ebullience of this formulation will stay with me, too: “Ah!the meeting of the meetingof the meeting.” “With enormous greed I/ want it all” Ma writes in another poem. Life and literature is ready for your appetite! Bravo for the way you are seeing things aslant and initiating your readers. The Hoyt Jacobs Memorial Poetry Prize is an annual poetry prize given in honor of MFA alumnae Hoyt Jacobs, who died on January 17, 2015. The prize is open to all Queens College MFA students currently enrolled in the program. A prize of $1,000 is awarded to the best poems submitted. You can read more about the unique chances our students get access to during the program on our Opportunities page: Cong […] “Kathleen Ma: Hoyt Jacobs Poetry Prize”

zakia henderson-brown wins The 2025 Alice James Award Editor’s Choice Yesterday, we found out […] “”

Check out the Latest Issue of English Matters!Each year, the English Department creates a new issue of English Matters, our annual magazine where we bring you news from the department, […]

A Mini QC MFA Reunion! Tak […] “A Mini QC MFA Reunion!”

Feb 18: Veronica Schanoes & Alaya Dawn Johnson reading in Brooklyn February 18 at 7 pmBarrow’s Intense Tasting Room86 34th Street, Brooklyn, NY Two English Department faculty members, Veronica Schanoes a […]

Alaya Dawn Johnson: Brooklyn Books & Booze February 18 at 7 pmBarrow’s Intense Tasting Room86 34th Street, Brooklyn, NY MFA faculty member Alaya Dawn Johnson will be taking part in one of the city’s most fun reading series, Brooklyn Books & Booze. The series takes place in the tasting room of Barrow’s Intense ginger liqueur distillery on the third Tuesday of each month. For more information, and to see the full lineup for February 18th, please visit the Bro […] “Alaya Dawn Johnson: Brooklyn Books & Booze”

Mosab Abu Toha & Ammiel AlcalayWednesday, February 12, 2025, 8:00 pmThe Parish Hall at St Mark’s ChurchTickets: $10/Free on YouTube QC MFA faculty member Ammiel Alcalay will be appearing at the St. Mark’s Poetry Project this March! Mosab Abu Toha and Ammiel Alcalay’s poetry bring new meaning to the act of witnessing, writing with and for the dead, summoning the living in a call to imagine anew—form an image of another world lying below the rubble of this world’s unending devastation. Since 1966, The Poetry Project has expanded access to literature, education, and opportunities for sharing one’s creative work in a counter-hierarchical, radically open space and community. Premised on the vision that cultural action at the local level can inspire broader shifts in public consciousness, The Project is committed to developing and collaborating on replicable program models that challenge persistent social narratives, especially through the verbal reframing made possible in poetry.  This event will also be livestreamed for free on the Project […] “Mosab Abu Toha & Ammiel Alcalay”

ABORTION STORIES, Launch Event & Conversation Tue, Mar 4, 20256:00 PM–8:00 PMThe Skylight Room (9100)CUNY Graduate Center, 365 5th Ave, NYC.Free and open to all. Registration required. Penguin Classics presents ABORTION STORIES, a one-of-a-kind, intersectional volume of abortion representation in American literature before Roe v. Wade that compellingly proclaims: when abortion is illegal, people’s lives are always more precarious and limited. Head to the CUNY Grad Center for a conversation with Karen Weingarten (Editor), Rebecca Traister (Foreword), and Renee Bracy Sherman (Afterword) who will discuss these stories, poems, essays, and memoirs that reflect a range of representations and responses to abortion. The conversation will be moderated by Professor Vanessa Pérez-Rosario (Queens College and the CUNY Graduate Center). This event is free and open to all, please register to attend. Copies of the book will […] “ABORTION STORIES, Launch Event & Conversation”

Mar 4: Abortion Stories: Book Launch & Conversation Tue, Mar 4, 20256:00 PM–8:00 PMThe Skylight Room (9100)CUNY Graduate Center, 365 5th Ave, NYC.Free and open to all. Registration r […]

A Nicole Cooley Double Feature – 1/30 & 1/31 Tonight kicks off two nights of Nicole Cooley readings–a double feature, if you will!  The first is tonight at NYU’s Lillian Vernon Writer’s House, to celebrate the launch of Dear Yusef: Essays, Letters, and Poems, For and About One Mr. Komunyakaa, a superb anthology celebrating the legacy of Yusef Komunyakaa. You can catch Nicole along with Anne Marie Macari, Jeffrey McDaniel, Yesenia Montilla, John Murillo, and Nicole Sealey tonight at 7 pm if you’re in the city.  Tomorrow, you can also hear Nicole read from her latest book, Mother Water Ash, as part of the Brainstorm Reading Series, which is organized by alumni and students from the Queens College MFA Program in Creative Writing & Literary Translation out of the delightful Pete’s Candy Store in Brooklyn.  If you’re in New York City, don’t miss out—hop on the train […] “A Nicole Cooley Double Feature – 1/30 & 1/31”

QC MFA Virtual Open House – February 19 Wednesday, February 19 […] “”

“Zuihitsu as Poetry": Kimiko Hahn & Hiromi Itō PoetryLiveExchange Vol.1Date: February 1, 2025Time: 08:00 p.m. (EST)$15 via Eventbrite In Japanese literature, Zuihitsu has long been a form of expressive, reflective writing. In English-speaking contexts, this traditional genre has been received and explored, and evolved into a new form of poetic expression. Kimiko Hahn has been leading this exploration including through her own poetry. On the other hand, Hiromi Ito has built a distinctive literary world through a free-flowing style that seamlessly moves between poetry and prose. In this event, Kimiko Hahn, drawing from her Japanese-American background, and Hiromi Ito, who has long lived in the United States, will share their perspectives on the fusion of poetry and essay, the influence of cultural backgrounds, and the impact of language. As a special highlight, the poets will perform live readings of their works, creating a unique moment where cultures intersect and merge. Buy Your Ticket Here! BIOS: • Hiromi Ito (Poet) Hiromi Itō is a Japanese poet, born in Tokyo in 1955. She made her debut in 1978 after winning the Gendaishi Techo Award. Exploring themes of gender and the body, she became a leading figure in the 1980s women’s poetry movement and pioneered the genre of “child-rearing essays.” Her unique approach to capturing the lives of women has resonated with a wide audience. From 2018 to 2021, she served as a professor at Waseda University. Her accolades include the Takami Jun Prize for Kawara Arekusa (2006), the Hagiwara Sakutarō Prize for Toge-Nuki: Shin Sugamo Jizō Engi (2007), the Murasaki Shikibu Prize for Literature (2008), the Naoki Award (2015), the Taneda Santōka Award (2019), the Chikada Award (2020), and the Kumamoto Literary Award for Michiyukiya (2021). Itō has also worked on modern translations of Buddhist scriptures, publishing Reading the Heart Sutra and Someday I Will Die, Until Then I Will Live: My Own Buddhist Sutra. Other notable works include Hiromi Itō Poetry Collection (Gendaishi Bunko), Continued: Hiromi Itō Poetry Collection (Gendaishi Bunko), Uma-shi, Shoro no Onna, Forest Correspondence: Traveling with Mori Ogai in Berlin, and Tito, the Wild Puppy. Her poetry has gained international acclaim, particularly the English translation of Toge-Nuki: Shin Sugamo Jizō Engi, titled The Thorn Puller (2022), which has drawn significant attention in the U.S. Other English translations of her work by Jeffrey Angles include Killing Kanoko: Selected Poems of Hiromi Itō (2009), Wild Grass on the Riverbank (2014), and Killing Kanoko / Wild Grass on the Riverbank (2020). • Kimiko Hahn (Poet) Kimiko Hahn is author of eleven collections of poetry, including The Ghost Forest: New & Selected Poems (W.W. Norton, 2024) which plays with given forms while creating new ones, and, in doing so, honors past writers. Her last collection, Foreign Bodies, revisits the personal as political while exploring the immigrant body, the endangered animal’s body, objects removed from children’s bodies, and hoarded things. Previous books Toxic Flora and Brain Fever were prompted by fields of science; The Narrow Road to the Interior takes title and forms from Basho’s famous journals. Reflecting her interest in Japanese poetics, her essay on the zuihitsu was published in the American Poetry Review. In 2023, Kimiko was named a Chancellor for the Academy of American Poets and received The Poetry Foundation’s Ruth Lilly Lifetime Achievement Award. Additional honors include a Guggenheim Fellowship, PEN/Voelcker Award, Shelley Memorial Prize, Theodore Roethke Memorial Poetry Prize, American Book Award, and NEA Fellowships. In her service to the field, she enjoys promoting chapbooks and has created a chapbook archive at the Queens College Library. Hahn is a distinguished professor in the MFA Program in Creative Writing & Literary Translation at Queens College, The City University of New York. Ticket Information: $15 via Event […] ““Zuihitsu as Poetry”: Kimiko Hahn & Hiromi Itō”

Tale of the Wall: Luke Leafgren with Ammiel Alcalay Tuesday, January 28 · 7pm ESTFree over Zoom or in-personBrookline Booksmith, Brookline, MA Join the Transnational Literature Series at Brookline Booksmith for a virtual event with translator Luke Leafgren to discuss and honor the release of The Tale of a Wall: Reflections on the Meaning of Hope and Freedom by Nasser Abu Srour. He will be in conversation with writer, translator, and Queens College MFA faculty member Ammiel Alcalay. A passionate prison memoir from a Palestinian man incarcerated for over 30 years in an Israeli prison—equal parts metaphysical love story and cry for justice. One of more than 5,000 Palestinians held in Israeli prisons before October 7, 2023, Nasser Abu Srour was sentenced to life without parole in 1993 after a forced confession. His extraordinary writings delve into the history of the Nakba to the Intifada of the Stones, as he navigates life within the confines of an Israeli prison. But it is within the walls of his cell that this exceptional memoir takes an unexpected direction—Abu Srour turns the very Wall that has deprived him of freedom into his companion, his interlocutor. It becomes the source of stability that allows him to endure a chaotic, hopeless existence. The limitations of this survival strategy—and singular literary device—become painfully evident when falling in love causes Abu Srour to lose his grip on the Wall. Only by writing the story of his imprisonment and the story of his love does Abu Srour find his way back. In doing so, he has created a work of art that transcends his pain while shining a glaring light on the ongoing tragedy of the Palestinian situation. Nasser Abu Srour was arrested in 1993, accused of being an accomplice to the murder of an Israeli intelligence officer, and sentenced to life in prison. While incarcerated, Abu Srour completed the final semester of a bachelor’s degree in English from Bethlehem University, and obtained a master’s degree in political science from Al-Quds University. The Tale of a Wall is his first book to appear in English. Luke Leafgren is an Assistant Dean of Harvard College. He has translated seven novels from Arabic and has twice received the Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation, in 2018 for Muhsin Al-Ramli’s The President’s Gardens and in 2023 for Najwa Barakat’s Mister N. Moderator Ammiel Alcalay is a poet, novelist, translator, essayist, critic, and scholar. His over 20 books include After Jews and Arabs, Memories of Our Future, a little history, and the forthcoming Follow the Person: Archival Encounters, as well as CONTROLLED DEMOLITION: a work in four books. His co-translation of Palestinian poet Nasser Rabah’s Gaza: The Poem Said Its Piece, is due out in early 2025. He received an American Book Award in for his work as founder and General Editor of Lost & Found: The CUNY Poetics Document Initiative, and is a Distinguished Professor at Queens College and the CUNY Graduate Center. What You Need to Know to Attend This virtual event is free to attend but please consider purchasing The Tale of a Wall. Register on this page to receive a Zoom link on the day of the event. If you don’t receive a confirmation email after registering, contact us right away. The Transnational Literature Series at Brookline Booksmith The Transnational Series focuses on stories of migration, the intersection of politics and literature, and works in translation and is supported by the independent bookstore Brookline Booksmith. Subscribe to the Transnational Series newsletter for information on upcoming events, b […] “Tale of the Wall: Luke Leafgren with Ammiel Alcalay”

Radhika Singh – “The Spirit of Mutiny”The Markaz Review has just published an excerpt of a forthcoming novel from MFA alum Radhika Singh in their latest issue. “The Spirit of Mutiny” is part of Singh’s speculative fiction novel which “imagines a post-imperialist future enabled by the success of ongoing liberation movements, with Gaza holding the frontline of resistance to Empire today.” The Markaz Review is an online and print review of art, music, film, literature, ideas, cities and culture writ large, with an emphasis on freedom of expression and a focus on the writers and artists from the center of the world. Organized as a nonprofit in France and the United States, TMR supports creative people of the greater Middle East, generally thought to include the Arab world, Iran, Turkey, Afghanistan, Pakistan and North Africa. As a global community, TMR is a creative and literary destination that seeks to erase the boundaries between peoples and celebrate cult […] “Radhika Singh – “The Spirit of Mutiny””

Jason Tougaw – The Profound Benefits of Walking There’s a reason you […] “”

2025 QUEENS COLLEGE UNDERGRADUATE WRITING PRIZESGuidelines for Submission All currently matriculated QC undergrads, including students who will finish their degree requirements in the […]

Support The English Department this Giving Tuesday Any Donation Helps This #GivingTuesday Working with the outstanding students at Queens College continues to be the greatest reward for […]

Catherine LaSota: Celebrating the 30th Anniversary of the Best Year in Music: 1994 Celebrating the 30th Anniversary of the Best Year in Music: 1994Tuesday, Nov 19, 2024 from 8-10pmL.I.C. Bar (Carriage House) 45-58 Vernon Blvd, L.I.C., NYC 11101 Literature is coming back to LIC Bar, but with a twist: it’s a celebration of music alongside words. MFA alum Catherina LaSota will will tinker on her Fender Mustang while hosting Emily Raboteau, Brian Gresko, & Nicole Haroutunian, who will offer their reflections on the music of 1994 (considered by many to be the greatest single year of music for all time) along with some brand-new writing. I think the bigger question is whether this is a reunion of LaSota’s reading series, or just an encore from those days–founded in 2015, LIC Reading Series quickly became one of the literary standouts in the borough of Queens, along with the rise of Newtown Literary and other reading series in Queens, such as Oh, Bernice! which was also run by QC MFA alums. Queens may be more established now as a cultural destination in the hearts of New Yorkers, but we can always use the return of one of the best literary programs in the borough. (Just saying, Catherine, if you’re reading this!) Catherine LaSota is just one of the amazing people who have come through the QC MFA P […] “Catherine LaSota: Celebrating the 30th Anniversary of the Best Year in Music: 1994”

Jason Tougaw: Twenty-First-Century Grief Our own program director, Jason Tougaw, has written a piece for Psychology Today about Asher Young’s immersive art installation Living Memory, which allows people to visit with holograms made from photographs they submit of departed loved ones. The result is another step in the evolution of how media and technology can not just assist us as we grieve, but actually shape how we remember those we’ve lost. Tougaw describes his encounter with one of these holograms and explores how this experience can be both painful and a joy in his piece. If you’ve lost someone, maybe you […] “Jason Tougaw: Twenty-First-Century Grief”

QC MFA Virtual Open House Wednesday, November […] “”