Noel Quiñones reads from Orange

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I recorded Noel Quiñones reading from Orange, their first book of poems at the Loisaida Center at 9th Street and Avenue C on May the 8th. I live right across the street so it was an easy hop, skip and jump. What a pleasure it was. Quiñones had asked five poet friends to read with them, mentors who had been there along the way, and everyone read super poems. I hadn’t been to such an enjoyable fulfilling evening in quite a while.

One friend, Yesenia Montilla, when introducing Quiñones said, “What astonishes me about Noel and their book is that they are not afraid to find the wound and then address it.” After reading Orange myself, I might add, that when Quiñones finds the wound, they also dress it. The poems in Orange begin in childhood and make peace with the past offering a salve, a balm, a testament and a shout out to the vibrant nurturing nature of the Bronx, birthplace of both Muriel Rukeyser and Hip Hop.

“The Bronx,” writes Noel Quiñones, “taught me everything I know.” Living among immigrants is an advantage, it’s true, because immigrants know where they are and where they’ve been and can see in that comparison opportunities better than the native born can. Growing up with two languages teaches a young poet nuance and possibilities. What greater gifts can there be?

Orange is Quiñones’s favorite color, a color that took a while to be given a name. It wasn’t red, it wasn’t yellow. What was it? To be understood words are objective, yet we understand them subjectively. And the color we see together, the poet informs us, is perceived alone. Orange experiments with new ways of seeing a poem. In “You Sang To Me” there are dance steps from a salsa dance step diagram that redacts some words on the page. Footsteps cover words that seem to be written in Spanish when I look.

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There are poems in Orange that you can color and poems you need to figure out. There are puzzles and mazes. Sometimes your imagination must look, which is good because you’re going to see something new. Orange is like walking through a funhouse or like being with a teacher you loved in elementary school. Its cover is beautiful for anyone who looks and there is even a QR Code on one of its pages that connects the reader to a poem on the Internet, and consequently to all other points beyond that. There is always more to know. In the Vimeo below Noel Quiñones reads some poems from Orange. Enjoy and explore.

Noel Quiñones reads from Orange
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From part 111. of Orange

Orange by Noel Quiñones is published by CavanKerry Press. You can check it out here:

https://cavankerrypress.org/products/orange

Noel Quiñones – Poet. Actor. Organizer. Performance Artist.
Noel Quiñones is an Emmy award winning writer, speaker, educator, community organizer, and cultural worker who believes in the power of storytelling to build community. Noel has shared their stories across the globe, including Lincoln Center, Harvard University, the Ford Foundation, BAM, the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, Stanford University, and the Honolulu Museum of Art.