Let’s Gather
Join Séamus Isaac Fey and me in celebrating fellow poet Joan Kwon Glass on the release of her book Daughter of Three Gone Kingdoms out this month from Perugia Press!
Firehouse Gallery in Milford, CT
Hors d’oeuvres and cake
Come by the book launch for A Mouth Holds Many Things on June 28th at 6 PM at Stelo Arts in partnership with PNCA Creative Writing.
Readings and Round Table Discussion with contributors: Stephanie Adams-Santos, Jennifer S. Cheng, Gabrielle Civil, Monica Ong, Jennifer Perrine, and Sandy Tanaka. Moderated by editors Dao Strom and Jyothi Natarajan.
Stelo Arts
412 NW 8th Avenue
Portland, OR 97209
The New Haven Free Public Library is hosting a panel discussion on women writing and publishing. I’m excited to share my experience as a visual poet among a vibrant community of local authors.
In celebration of “A Mouth Holds Many Things: A De-Canon Hybrid-Literary Collection” published by Fonograf Editions, Stelo will be presenting an exhibition of selected artworks by contributors in the collection, curated by Jyothi Natarajan and Dao Strom in collaboration with Stelo Arts.
The exhibition shares a curatorial vision with the book in its aim to showcase works by BIPOC women & nonbinary writers, poets, and artists who use multimodal approaches to writing, including visual, embodied, sonic, asemic, and tactile innovations, to contemplate—and complicate—our relationships to language and reading & writing.
ARTWRKD invites you to explore Nocturne, a series of Monica Ong’s poetic meditations on the things that keep one up at night. In the heart of the gallery, an ambient listening lounge features Ong’s Insomnia Poems read in the style of sleep tapes, where poetry is an oasis of both rest and resistance. In search of cures for sleeplessness, this visual poet leads us through an apothecary of cultural remedies, constellation maps, to her ancestors stargazing back at us through literary art objects and handheld poems. Whether in dreams of memory or by moonlight, these visual poems ask us to slow down for a close reading as they reveal stories long hidden in the dark.
Nocturne: Insomnia and Other Poems
May 31–June 15, 2024
Opening Reception
Fri, May 31 ⟡ 6-9 pm
Poetry Reading & Dialogue
Sat, June 1 ⟡ 1 pm
ArtWRKD Gallery
126 South State Street
Newtown, PA 18940
I’m delighted to join poets Chris Santiago, Doug Kearney, Keith Wilson, and Mag Gabbert for this panel on visual poetry. Hope to see you at AWP in Kansas City this year!
Sight Singing: Poetry and the Visual
This panel explores the intersections between language and visual art through the lens of visual poetry. Our panelists will engage with questions about the role of design, typography, poetic images, so-called white- or negative space, and how visual elements can expand our understanding of poetic meaning. We will examine a range of visual poetry forms, including concrete poetry, collages, and multimedia works, to showcase the playfully diverse ways poets blend text and image to create meaning.
For those of you near the University of Iowa Libraries, my piece Lunar Volvelle is featured in this incredible exhibition exploring the art of the book.
Making the Book, Past and Present explores the intersections of history, art, and practicality. What can we learn by placing books, materials, and makers from the Middle Ages through today in conversation with one another? Many techniques and materials common centuries ago still inspire contemporary book artists and bookbinders.
Curated by Eric Ensley and Emily Martin, this exhibition features a global selection of rare historic books and modern book art. From medieval manuscripts and early modern works to recent book sculptures, pop-ups, and books that move, these Special Collections & Archives materials shown together make a visual feast representing the strong connection between books and makers past and present.
The Minnesota Center for Book Arts presents New Editions 2023, featuring works from Proxima Vera
The Ingenious Mode: Expanding the Experimental Impulse of Poetry
The Frenchtown Bookshop
Join me at the Fenchtown Bookshop in New Jersey this June for an evening of astronomy-inspired visual poetry hosted by the wonderful Vasiliki Katsarou!
Monica Ong: Planetaria on view May 21–Sep 3, 2023
Poetry reading & celebration
In conversation with Monica about Silent Anatomies
Beloved Community: Writers & Artists in Conversation
This summer at the Poetry Foundation in Chicago
Panel Gallery: (En)Visioning Violence
Monica joins a panel of writers to discuss making art in this political moment. With Quan Tran and Nay Saysourinho, moderated by Na-Rae Kim.
Many say that the pandemic made visible anti-Asian violence. But what does anti-Asian violence look like in the past and present? How have writers engaged various forms of violence? And what are some of the violences that the writers face for how they are seen or what they create?
Three Asian American writers discuss how they see violence and art, and how they see writing in a time of violence. What does it mean that they are seen as Asian American writers in our time? How do you write, and not write, as an Asian American, especially at this moment?
Join visual poet Monica Ong in friendly conversation about the inspiring women scientists, family histories, and Chinese constellations that illuminate by her exhibition Planetaria, currently on view at the Institute Library through September 8, 2021. This artist-led tour of the gallery welcomes you to share in the wonder of astronomy-inspired visual poetry off the page.
Join artist Monica Ong in this family-friendly meet n’ greet and learn about the inspiring women in science as well as the animals of the Chinese night sky and its constellations that inspired Monica’s visual poetry.
RSVP at the Institute Library →
A poetry event of literary stargazing with Jennifer S. Cheng, J. Jennifer Espinoza, Monica Ong, and Keith S. Wilson.
Planetaria: An Exhibition of Visual Poetry by Monica Ong will be at the Institute Library of New Haven starting on June 8 — September 8, 2021
Join us for an unconventional conversation on our non-traditional paths into writing and publishing. With Sam Tallent and Mishka Shubaly.
How do we tell time? How does time tell us? Time passes in the smallest parts of the universe—in the decay of atoms—and marks immense human movements on the earth (railways bringing standard time and empire; the doomsday clock telling how close we stand to nuclear war). We walk, move, have being, know one another, and use language in time; in the time of pandemic, we have made our own clocks.
Art by Shanna T. Melton
Hosted by Shanna T. Melton, I’m excited to be reading alongside acclaimed poets including Mahogany L. Browne, Elisabeth Velasquez, Ngoma Hill, Osunyoyin Alake Ifarike, Abyss, Ras Osagyefo, Chance, JaSun, and Caroline Rothstein. This evening is a tribute to the legacy of Miguel Algarín of the Nuyorican Poets Cafe.
Celebrating the book launch of Letters to a Young Brown Girl by Barbara Jane Reyes, Eastwind Books of Berkeley hosts a reading with Barbara Jane Reyes alongside Kimberly Quiogue Andrews, Marianne Chan, and Monica Ong.
Visit this online exhibition to check out my visual poetry as part of the group exhibition ConTEXT III. The Foundry Art Centre presents an all media exhibition focusing on the written word's role in the visual arts. Contemporary society is saturated with media and this exhibition showcases how intertwined the literary and visual arts are.
