Janine Joseph

Born in the Philippines, Janine Joseph is the author of Driving without a License (Alice James Books, 2016), winner of the Kundiman Poetry Prize, 2018 da Vinci Eye Award, and a finalist for the 2018 Eric Hoffer Award and 2017 Oklahoma Book Award. A librettist, her commissioned work for the Houston Grand Opera/HGOco include What Wings They Were: The Case of Emeline, “On This Muddy Water”: Voices from the Houston Ship Channel, and From My Mother’s Mother. Her poems have also been set to music by acclaimed composers Melissa Dunphy (“American DREAMers: Stories of Immigration”) and Reinaldo Moya (“DREAM Song”). She is an organizer for Undocupoets, a contributing editor for Tongue, and serves on the Advisory Board for the Center for Poets & Writers at OSU-Tulsa and the National Advisory Board for Writers @ Work in Salt Lake City, UT. She is an Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at Oklahoma State University.

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In the beginning, there was a window

I pried the blinds to make light
of my losses

I fished my hands into and shattered
the water

What a hook I was

doubled in the beginning

In the beginning                 My mouth

and the gasp upon impact
The skull intact

and the brain increasing
activity where the neurons

didn’t die

Slowly I filled the form

X
X
X

My torso scored in order
of severity

only a diagram

–
From World Literature Today

Links

• Poet’s website.
• “The Graphic Novel That Captures the Anxieties of Being Undocumented” by Janine Joseph. The Atlantic. 31 July 2018.
• Introducing Janine Joseph, a Talented Poet who Writes of Being Undocumented. Los Angeles Times. 05 May 2016.
• 11 Immigrant Authors who are Transforming Literature. Bustle. 24 May 2017.

Media

Seminar with Marcelo Hernandez Castillo | October 16, 2018

Reading with Marcelo Hernandez Castillo | October 16, 2018