QUEENSBOUND

QUEENSBOUND is a collaborative audio project that seeks to connect writers across the borough, showcase and develop a literature of Queens, and reflect the borough back to itself. Begun in 2018 by project founder KC Trommer with a New Work Grant from Queens Council on the Arts, QUEENSBOUND collects poems about Queens—from Long Island City to Jamaica—and embeds them on a redesigned, Vignelli-style Queens subway map. The aim of the project is to build and fortify the community of Queens writers, develop and support Queens-based literature, and to bring poetry to the people of Queens.

In November 2018, the project launched with sixteen contributors from across Queens, including two of the borough’s former Poet Laureates. To celebrate and publicize the launch, contributors took over the first car of a Queens-bound 7 train at the first Queens stop at Vernon-Jackson and staged a reading on the train. Contributors and guests stepped off at Mets-Willets Point and gathered at the Queens Museum for a reception in the Panorama of the City of New York. The launch was covered by LitHub, The Poetry Foundation, and The Queens Tribune. To see the map, hear the poems, and to see videos of the November 2018 launch, please go to www.Queensbound.com.

QUEENSBOUND is an audio project that encourages close listening and is intended to break down the sense of intimidation that is often associated with poetry readings. This is poetry for the people online and in public spaces. 

In 2019, QUEENSBOUND formed an editorial board, comprised of four Queens poets, Jared Harél, Abeer Y. Hoque, Joseph O. Legaspi, and founder KC Trommer. The project has engaged a Peabody Awarding-winning audio producer, Ann Hepperman, to record audio for the next iteration of the project. Lexi Namer, a web developer, is developing a dynamic website for the project. At the invitation of board members, sixteen additional contributors will join the project. QUEENSBOUND will host another train reading during National Poetry Month, April 2020, with a reception at Flushing Town Hall.

QUEENSBOUND is a multi-year project that will expand annually to include the work of Queens poets writing about the borough and will culminate with a celebratory reading on a Queens-bound train and a reception at an important cultural institution in Queens.