The search for a new Poet Laureate in Queens ended on Friday, May 4 when Little Neck resident Julio Marzan was appointed to the position.
“It was a pleasant surprise,” Marzan said of being selected.
Marzan was born in Puerto Rico but came to New York shortly after his birth. He grew up in the Bronx but has called Queens home for the last 36 years.
Along with having lectured at Harvard University, Marzan was an English professor at Nassau Community College. He is also a published and award-winning author, and is the recipient of the Dylan Thomas Memorial Award for Poetry. Two of his published books are Translations Without Originals and Puerta de Tierra.
“Mr. Marzan has had an accomplished career as a poet and will now take on the mantle of Poet Laureate of American’s most diverse county,” Queens Borough President Helen Marshall said. She added, “There were dozens of worthy candidates and all deserve our support and encouragement for their passion and love of poetry.”
Queens College President James Muyskens added, “Born in Puerto Rico, raised in the Bronx and a 36-year resident of Queens, Julio Marzan has what we most cherish in a Poet Laureate: an international perspective and a strong, lyrical voice that, like Walt Whitman’s, ‘hears American singing.’ I am confident that he will hear ‘the varied carols’ of our borough during the next three years, and share its many songs with all the people of his adopted home.”
In order to be considered for Poet Laureate of Queens, candidates had to have resided in the borough for at least the last two years. They also had to be published and have works written about Queens.
“I look forward to the fact that I have no idea what’s coming,” said Marzan, who has a poem entitled “Utopia Parkway.” “I like the idea that things happen and new experiences come. That’s very exciting.”
Marzan is the fourth person to hold the position of Poet Laureate in Queens. The first was selected after the Friends of the Queens College Library came up with the idea in 1996.
UTOPIA PARKWAY
By Julio Marzan
Airport fumes
always transport me
to that island
no longer mapped,
and my wheels
touch that life
always dream
from New York,
where on clear days
when no overcast
traps fumes,
my bones remind
I am from nowhere
And from there
I write about me.
