Archive / Q…

Queeney, Maggie 2016; 2023

Wednesday, September 14, 2016
with Toby Altman
City Lit Books

Wednesday, August 16, 2023
Blue Hour Reading Series with Maggie Queeney and Brittany Rogers
Haymarket House

laurel tree, limbs bent and twined into crown heifer bank of marsh reeds,
handful lashed into pipes, song in another breath a clutch of conifers, weeping

– Maggie Queeney, “Metamorphosis: The Female Into”

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Watch Maggie Queeney’s 2023 reading with Brittany Rogers at the Chicago Poetry Center:

Maggie Queeney begins at 21:50 minutes.

more than the men, even. The ones who looked
like I looked. Who called my name in a voice
I could not identify from my own on recordings.

– Maggie Queeney, “The Women”

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Listen to Maggie Queeney’s interview on the Viewless Wings Poetry Podcast:

Visit Maggie Queeney’s website⇒

Quintos, Danni 2023

Wednesday, March 15, 2023
Blue Hour Reading Series with Danni Quintos and Kien Lam
Haymarket House

They ask me where I’m from & the answer is hundreds of years old. Is that last name Spanish? From Spain? I sharpen my claws & answer carefully. Originally, I say, because colonization. They tell me they need to read up on that. When I split in two, they don’t understand, they speak louder & slower, they explain what should be done instead.

– Danni Quintos, “Self-Portrait as Manananggal”

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Watch Danni Quintos’ 2023 reading with Kien Lam at the Chicago Poetry Center:

Danni Quintos begins at 20:09 minutes.

We walked to Wal-mart
& bought Something
About Mary & after watching
it in the nighttime basement,
I wished I could just be
like my cousin, smoking secret
cigarettes with gangly boys
under the dock, or like Cameron Diaz:

– Danni Quintos, “Who I Wanted To Be Instead”

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Watch Danni Quintos read from her poetry collection Two Brown Dots:

Read Danni Quintos’ interview with Boa Editions:

A Spoonful of Nutella and a Caboodle: An Interview with Danni Quintos

Danni Quintos is the author of the debut poetry collection Two Brown Dots, which was selected by Aimee Nezhukumatathil as the 20th Poulin Prize winner. This collection was published by BOA Editions on April 12, 2022 and explores what it means to be a racially ambiguous, multiethnic, Asian American woman in Kentucky.

More info on Danni Quintos⇒

Quesada, Ruben 2017

Thursday, June 14, 2017
GROOVE-A-THON with Tara Betts, Kristy Bowen, RJ Eldridge, and Simone Muench
Innertown Pub

Papá dances
to the electric beat of the marimba,
his cheek bristly against Mamá’s
neck; his thick fingers sift
through her wispy hair. I am nowhere
to be found

– Ruben Quesada, “Last Photograph of My Parents”

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Read this interview with Ruben Quesada from Jam Tarts:

Resisting Taste, with Ruben Quesada – Jam Tarts Magazine

Frederick Speers: Thanks for taking time to talk with me, Ruben, and for sharing your thoughts with the readers of Jam Tarts. So much of your poetry seems to be about love and loss. Would you say you’re a love poet? And if so, what kind(s) of love do you write about?

it is a gray so slick you can see your smile reflected in winter’s
glen; you’ve become the sky, your face filling the heavens. All that is left is the faint smell of
lavender lingering like a bruise. I refuse to lose you.

– Ruben Quesada, “On Witness”

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Watch Ruben Quesada read here: