Participating Poets and Performers: Jackson Heights Poetry Festival 2009
Nicole Cooley grew up in New Orleans. Her third book of poems, Breach, about Hurricane Katrina will be published by LSU Press next spring. She has also published two books of poetry and a novel. She directs the new MFA Program in Creative Writing and Literary Translation at Queens College-CUNY.
Queens Poet Laureate, Julio Marzan is the Associate Professor of English at Nassau Community College. He has published two books of poetry, Translations without Originals (I. Reed Books), and Puerta de Tierra. (U. of Puerto Rico Press) as well as poems translated for his Selected Poems: Luis Palés Matos (Arte Público Press, 2001). His poems have appeared in numerous journals, among them, Parnassus: Poetry in Review, Massachusetts Review, Tin House, New Letters, and Harper's Magazine. His poems have appeared in anthologies, and the following college texts: The Compact Bedford Introduction to Literature,( 1999-2007), Latino Boom: An Anthology of Latino Literature (Longman/Pearson, 2006), The Bedford Introduction to Poetry (1999). US: The Literature of a Multicultural Society, (McGraw-Hill, 1998), Literature: Reading, Reacting, Writing (Holt, Rinehart, 1991). Currently, two poems appear in the past four editions of The Bedford Introduction to Literature. As fiction writer, he is the author of the novella-in-stories The Bonjour Gene (U. Wisconsin Press, 2005). Among his non-fiction titles, he edited Luna, Luna: Creative Writing Ideas from Spanish, Latin American and Latino Literature (Teachers & Writers Collaborative, 1997), a T&W "Best Seller," and authored the groundbreaking The Spanish American Roots of William Carlos (U. Texas Press, 1994), a Choice Magazine Award winner, and the subject of a William Carlos Williams Society Panel at the 2001 MLA Convention. In spring 2006 he was Visiting Professor of Romance Languages at Harvard University. In May, 2007 he was appointed by the Queens Borough President the fourth Poet Laureate of Queens (2007-2010).
Laren McClung is a graduate student in the creative writing program at New York University. She has been the recipient of a Goldwater Hospital Teaching Fellowship and a Teachers and Writers Collaborative Van Lier Fellowship. She teaches creative writing at NYU and leads a workshop to veterans of the Iraq War. She is currently editing an anthology titled Children of Warriors and is an assistant poetry editor for Washington Square.
Poet, translator, essayist and educator, Richard Jeffrey Newman is the author of two volumes of poetry: The Silence Of Men, a book of his own poems and Selections from Saadi's Gulistan and Selections from Saadi's Bustan, translations of two masterpieces of 13th century Iranian poetry. In addition, he co-translated with Professor John Moyne the poetry in A Bird in the Garden of Angels, a selection of work by Rumi, also from 13th century Iran. Newman's poems and essays have appeared in a wide range of journals, including Salon.com, The American Voice, Circumference, Prairie Schooner, Another Chicago Magazine, The Pedestal Magazine (also here) and Birmingham Poetry Review. His work has been anthologized in Access Literature, and the title poem from The Silence Of Men has been translated into Dutch. In addition, he has completed a verse translation of a book-length section of the Shahnameh, the Persian national epic, for which he is seeking a publisher. Richard Jeffrey Newman is Literary Arts Director of Persian Arts Festival, sits on the advisory board of The Translation Project and is listed as a speaker with the New York Council for the Humanities. He is Associate Professor of English at Nassau Community College in Garden City, New York, where he coordinates the Creative Writing Project, the coordinator of the JHPF workshop series and on the JHPF Board of Advisors.
Roger Sedarat's first poetry collection, Dear Regime: Letters to the Islamic Republic, won Ohio UP's Hollis Summers Prize. His poetry and translations have appeared in such journals as New England Review, Zoland Poetry, Poet Lore, and iranian.com. A recipient of four scholarships to the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference and a St. Botolph Poetry Grant, he currently teaches poetry and translation in the MFA program at Queens College, CUNY.
Ocean Vuong is a Creative Writing Student at Brooklyn College. He is also an editor and writer for the Vietnam Literature Project in an aspiration to promote Vietnamese authors and their works. His poetry has been published in various literary journals including the North Central Review, the Connecticut River Review, Convergence, Ghoti, Poetalk, Ganymede, and Barnwood Press Review among others. He won the Beatrice Dubin Rose award for poetry and has work forthcoming in an anthology titled Smoke, published by PWP Press in Hoboken NJ.
At 25 years old, Jon Sandler's musical proficiency and depth is that of a seasoned veteran. Since picking up a guitar and writing his first song at the age of nine Jon has amassed an arsenal of catchy and melodic tunes with far reaching appeal. With a soulful voice he's been compared to a combination of Gavin DeGraw, Jason Mraz, Elton John and Ben Folds. His unique style has been heard throughout the New York City scene over the past two years where he has played over 75 shows at such popular venues like Knitting Factory, Pianos, Kenny's Castaways, Southpaw, Don Hills, Trash Bar, 169 Bar Siberia and The Triad Theater. Jon is currently mounting a Fall 2009 tour of the East Coast. Living in Brooklyn, New York Jon is writing original compositions for film and television projects, working on a new album, and performing sold-out shows with bassist Jeremy Siegle, drummer Sam Merrick and violinist Jens Kramer.