https://infantejp.com/about daily 1.0 2025-03-13 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a4e8288c027d88035c81044/38119230-42cf-4541-a2e9-2ed7953811d5/_ZZZ6765+%281%29.jpg About JP - John Paul “JP” Infante JP Infante is the author of On the Tip of Your Mother’s Tongue and Aquí y Allá: un retrato de la comunidad Dominicana en Washington Heights. He is the winner of PEN’s Robert J. Dau Short Story Prize and Thirty West’s Chapbook contest. His writing has appeared in Kweli, The Poetry Project, Rigorous, A Gathering of the Tribes, and elsewhere. He has been awarded scholarships and fellowships from the NY State Writers Institute, PEN America and The Center for Fiction. He holds an MFA from The New School. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a4e8288c027d88035c81044/38119230-42cf-4541-a2e9-2ed7953811d5/_ZZZ6765+%281%29.jpg About JP - John Paul “JP” Infante JP Infante is the author of On the Tip of Your Mother’s Tongue and Aquí y Allá: un retrato de la comunidad Dominicana en Washington Heights. He is the winner of PEN’s Robert J. Dau Short Story Prize and Thirty West’s Chapbook contest. His writing has appeared in Kweli, The Poetry Project, Rigorous, A Gathering of the Tribes, and elsewhere. He has been awarded scholarships and fellowships from the NY State Writers Institute, PEN America and The Center for Fiction. He holds an MFA from The New School. https://infantejp.com/writing daily 0.75 2025-03-13 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a4e8288c027d88035c81044/ff317121-b457-4097-8aa2-4e2f8ae75af3/Screen+Shot+2022-12-08+at+11.54.02+AM.png Writing - Mary In a brothel outside of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, an English archaeologist finds a clay tablet with Latin writings. After careful study, historians believe it is the reproduction of a letter written by John the Apostle. … Read the rest at Digging Through the Fat https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a4e8288c027d88035c81044/1582064903123-N1THMK8TKUD1HBQRBCB7/Screen+Shot+2020-02-18+at+5.27.58+PM.png Writing - My Club Meant Everything To Me Jada Delgado is torn. She knows science is her future – she’s just not sure whether it’ll be in culinary chemistry or engineering. But she has some time to decide. In the meantime, the 12-year-old hasn’t let up on her other passion. … Read the rest at The Bronx Free Press https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a4e8288c027d88035c81044/b2607b4b-ad33-4a8c-9de4-84a4839957ab/Screen+Shot+2022-12-08+at+12.21.37+PM.png Writing - Familia on Film Before Cardi B last year with Bad Bunny and J Balvin, there was Tito Nieves (1996). And before him, there was Pete Rodríguez (1967). Each artist can lay claim to their own musical version of “I Like It Like That.” But Bronx native Darnell Martin has her unique imprimatur. In 1994, the filmmaker wrote and directed I Like It Like That, an independent film released by Columbia Pictures that focused on a Puerto Rican family and community in the South Bronx. … Read the rest at The Bronx Free Press https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a4e8288c027d88035c81044/fbce454f-ac10-4739-8ec1-ae67f524f047/IMG_7281.jpg Writing - Remember Jerry Springer It was either enter school through a metal detector and be molested by a school cop, or go to my place, get high, and watch The Jerry Springer Show. My grandmother was in Santo Domingo that winter. It was you and me smoking weed, watching box TV. The only other person in my grandmother’s place was the man renting the living room turned bedroom. He wore a gold watch and gold rings. He made his money selling “antiques” on the corner of 190th and St. Nicholas Avenue. He was barely ever in the apartment, too busy selling the used shit that didn’t fit in the large blue drums to be shipped to Santo Domingo. You and I fucked nonstop. We’d run out of condoms but that never stopped us. That winter, it was just us two hiding from truancy police. Read the rest at Kweli https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a4e8288c027d88035c81044/7d512e4e-664d-467c-9823-f88a16644502/Screen+Shot+2022-12-08+at+12.28.03+PM.png Writing - Without a Big One 1. You’ve thought about jumping. It’s a cold winter night. You sit next to Queeny on your fire escape. The cars on the freeway come and go like waves. The lights from the George Washington Bridge reflect off the Hudson River like the shine in glassy eyes. The river is a giant bathtub without a ship or boat to save anyone who might be drowning. Your babysitter, Nilda, says suicide is like killing someone, and if you were to survive jumping off the fire escape, the police would arrest you for attempted murder. If you do try killing yourself, you plan to live through it because suicide only works if you survive. Nilda laughed when you told her the attempt is meant to get people’s attention. She laughed because it’s true. … Read the rest at Kweli https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a4e8288c027d88035c81044/ce3c794e-0c9b-4fde-bc87-41e6ac6ae9e9/Screen%252BShot%252B2020-02-18%252Bat%252B4.54.24%252BPM.jpg Writing - Almost All About Your Mother You were seven or eight the first time you questioned your mother’s sanity. Before entering a Human Resources Administration office in Washington Heights, she said, “If they ask, tell them I’m crazy.” To this day you’re not sure if she was joking. … Originally published in POST(blank) Magazine and now available in JP Infante’s debut poetry chapbook: On the Tip of Your Mother’s Tongue https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a4e8288c027d88035c81044/1582057381889-XLY8XMVTWB93KDHN90V7/Screen%2BShot%2B2020-02-18%2Bat%2B3.20.37%2BPM.jpg Writing - Buying Cocaine 2. I’m lying. This isn’t about you. Your dealer will overcharge you not because you’re white, but because you can afford it. This neighborhood is no different than that resort you went to in the Caribbean. Your dealer is more American than you think. He’s an aspiring capitalist just like those third-world resort workers. Platanos with Salami. Brugal with Coca-Cola. That light purple juicy warm hole inside that dark pitch-black woman. You were overcharged there. You will be overcharged here. … Originally published in The Poetry Project and now in JP Infante’s On the Tip of Your Mother’s Tongue. Purchase here. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a4e8288c027d88035c81044/1588201111047-79Z6KLFZJX9TK45CH5F9/Screen+Shot+2020-04-29+at+6.52.25+PM.png Writing - Yasica, Puerto Plata 1. When I lived in the mountains, I thought the same color meant the same taste. Tangerines, oranges and the sun. Citrus. When I saw my great-grandmother peel a tangerine with her bare hands while men used knives for oranges, she became God. I imagined what she could do with the sun. … Read the rest at Digging Through the Fat https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a4e8288c027d88035c81044/99debf72-9a12-4ec9-9914-57ddd31d7784/Screen+Shot+2022-02-02+at+9.06.38+PM.png Writing - Between the Park & Home and Where Everything is From Between the park and home, a brown man is passed out in the middle of the street. My daughter asks, What happened? I explain liquor. … Read both poems at A Gathering of theTribes https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a4e8288c027d88035c81044/1582061779761-5JI6AZSFR1AJ98AKBQMX/Screen+Shot+2020-02-18+at+4.35.17+PM.png Writing - descent and Your Story Workshopped i had a dream that men were judged not by the content of their character- if they were allies- but if they were of european descent. … Read the rest at Rigorous https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a4e8288c027d88035c81044/d4242104-9eba-49f1-81be-5011a694b18a/latinex+anothology+cover+small+3.jpeg Writing - Our Big Bang and Music as Harlem Both poems appear in The BreakBeat Poets Vol.4: LatiNext. Order here at Word Up Community Bookshop. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a4e8288c027d88035c81044/61e76f39-83e5-4c8c-b272-73bd8783a05b/Screen+Shot+2022-12-08+at+11.54.48+AM.jpg Writing - Bachata During Mayor David Dinkins’ reign my pops brought home the bacon, out hustling NYPD and making jewelry out of melted badges he gifted my moms. … Read the rest at 433 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a4e8288c027d88035c81044/efc0e13f-4dba-4d22-a1f4-9a0c9af099ab/Screen+Shot+2020-02-18+at+4.47.59+PM.jpg Writing - How to Reconsider Loving a Dominican Man 1: Identify the type of Plátano Is he maduro? Is he a boss who loves merengue, a lady killer with Trujillo shades on? Are his old school vibes too righteous for this world, quick to get a party started like Juan Bosch, only to bounce to start the next party? Is he blind to his own faults? An old man you’ve become so used to that you elect him over and over again over other men because you know you ain’t got no choice y la costumbre… … Purchase here at Word Up Community Bookshop https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a4e8288c027d88035c81044/1582063852739-8PYAQ407FN73MPD0LSBT/Screen+Shot+2020-02-18+at+5.10.27+PM.png Writing - How to Begin, Again Ydanis Rodríguez, the Councilmember who represents Inwood, argues that this rezoning proposal is not about pushing tenants out, but about an investment that will ultimately serve said tenants. … Read the rest at Manhattan Times https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a4e8288c027d88035c81044/c083f0ac-3b47-4473-915e-8595acc666c4/Screen+Shot+2023-11-15+at+1.33.01+PM.png Writing - Winston Vargas, Sisters, Washington Heights, New York, 1970 Aquí y Allá (Bilingual/ Bilingüe) Photos by Winston Vargas & Texts by JP Infante Winston Vargas recalls his childhood in Santiago, Dominican Republic with few words. The 79-year-old lifelong photographer says, “I have very little memory of life before we moved to New York City”. What Vargas does remember is concise, like a photo caption. A truck kicks up dust on a road between Haiti and the Dominican Republic: “My father had a business and I remember him having a truck. He told me he used to travel to Haiti quite often.” A black and white television: “I do remember seeing my first TV in Santiago. I believe it was in a government building.” Vargas’ memories as an immigrant child in New York City are just as photographic. A 1950’s New York City horizon: “I remember entering Manhattan in a car crossing a bridge and seeing the skyline and all the lights.” A hand grips melting snow: “My father brought a snowball into the apartment. I asked, ‘Where did it come from?” Now available for download in eBook format. * Winston Vargas recuerda su infancia en Santiago, República Dominicana, con pocas palabras. El fotógrafo de 79 años, que ha dedicado toda su vida a este arte dice: “Tengo muy pocos recuerdos de la vida antes de mudarnos a la ciudad de Nueva York”. Lo que Vargas recuerda es conciso, como el pie de foto de una imagen. Un camión levanta polvo en una carretera entre Haití y la República Dominicana: “Mi padre tenía un negocio y recuerdo que tenía un camión. Me contaba que solía viajar a Haití con frecuencia.” Un televisor en blanco y negro: “Recuerdo haber visto mi primer televisor en Santiago, creo que fue en un edificio gubernamental.” Los recuerdos de Vargas como niño inmigrante en la ciudad de Nueva York son igualmente fotográficos. El horizonte de Nueva York de la década de 1950: “Recuerdo entrar a Manhattan en un coche cruzando un puente y ver el perfil de la ciudad y todas las luces.” Una mano sostiene nieve derretida: “Mi padre trajo una bola de nieve al apartamento. Le pregunté, ¿De dónde vino?” Ahora disponible para descargar en formato eBook. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a4e8288c027d88035c81044/1582062169481-MQM2PCGII4PAZ1S2R2AM/Screen+Shot+2020-02-18+at+4.42.13+PM.png Writing - Stories Dique Allegedly about Josefina Baez I’ve daydreamed hundreds of hours, imagining the day I would tell Josefina Baez the story about talking about one of her books with a sex-worker abroad. I didn’t even consider writing about it, I had to tell it. In high school, I stole a signed, first edition copy of Dominicanish from the Brotherhood Sister Sol’s library in Harlem. … Read the rest at The Acentos Review https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a4e8288c027d88035c81044/872945fd-b7ff-427d-bf70-d14b5b315741/Bagging+Weight+Cover.jpg Writing - Bagging Weight Nereyda and I ain’t together no more. I know that, but we were never really together if you think about it. We just fucked around until the night of the hotel when shit got weird. She called me the morning of Larry’s funeral. We met at Mamajuanas on Dyckman. She kissed me on the cheek and asked about my blackeye. From Dyckman to one-six-eight, through Fort Tryon and The Cloisters, we talked about my pops sucka-punching me. She said not all rumors are true, but she don’t know my pops. She was talking when we passed by the altar for Larry in front of her aunt’s building, but I ain’t say nothing. We stopped at J. Hood Wright Park and stared at the George Washington Bridge. We watched the sun sink like a dope fiend nods off, disappearing behind buildings on the other side of the bridge. Read the rest at Guernica. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a4e8288c027d88035c81044/7d512e4e-664d-467c-9823-f88a16644502/Screen+Shot+2022-12-08+at+12.28.03+PM.png Writing - Without a Big One 1. You’ve thought about jumping. It’s a cold winter night. You sit next to Queeny on your fire escape. The cars on the freeway come and go like waves. The lights from the George Washington Bridge reflect off the Hudson River like the shine in glassy eyes. The river is a giant bathtub without a ship or boat to save anyone who might be drowning. Your babysitter, Nilda, says suicide is like killing someone, and if you were to survive jumping off the fire escape, the police would arrest you for attempted murder. If you do try killing yourself, you plan to live through it because suicide only works if you survive. Nilda laughed when you told her the attempt is meant to get people’s attention. She laughed because it’s true. … Read the rest at Kweli https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a4e8288c027d88035c81044/61e76f39-83e5-4c8c-b272-73bd8783a05b/Screen+Shot+2022-12-08+at+11.54.48+AM.jpg Writing - Bachata During Mayor David Dinkins’ reign my pops brought home the bacon, out hustling NYPD and making jewelry out of melted badges he gifted my moms. … Read the rest at 433 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a4e8288c027d88035c81044/b2607b4b-ad33-4a8c-9de4-84a4839957ab/Screen+Shot+2022-12-08+at+12.21.37+PM.png Writing - Familia on Film Before Cardi B last year with Bad Bunny and J Balvin, there was Tito Nieves (1996). And before him, there was Pete Rodríguez (1967). Each artist can lay claim to their own musical version of “I Like It Like That.” But Bronx native Darnell Martin has her unique imprimatur. In 1994, the filmmaker wrote and directed I Like It Like That, an independent film released by Columbia Pictures that focused on a Puerto Rican family and community in the South Bronx. … Read the rest at The Bronx Free Press https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a4e8288c027d88035c81044/fbce454f-ac10-4739-8ec1-ae67f524f047/IMG_7281.jpg Writing - Remember Jerry Springer It was either enter school through a metal detector and be molested by a school cop, or go to my place, get high, and watch The Jerry Springer Show. My grandmother was in Santo Domingo that winter. It was you and me smoking weed, watching box TV. The only other person in my grandmother’s place was the man renting the living room turned bedroom. He wore a gold watch and gold rings. He made his money selling “antiques” on the corner of 190th and St. Nicholas Avenue. He was barely ever in the apartment, too busy selling the used shit that didn’t fit in the large blue drums to be shipped to Santo Domingo. You and I fucked nonstop. We’d run out of condoms but that never stopped us. That winter, it was just us two hiding from truancy police. Read the rest at Kweli https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a4e8288c027d88035c81044/ce3c794e-0c9b-4fde-bc87-41e6ac6ae9e9/Screen%252BShot%252B2020-02-18%252Bat%252B4.54.24%252BPM.jpg Writing - Almost All About Your Mother You were seven or eight the first time you questioned your mother’s sanity. Before entering a Human Resources Administration office in Washington Heights, she said, “If they ask, tell them I’m crazy.” To this day you’re not sure if she was joking. … Originally published in POST(blank) Magazine and now available in JP Infante’s debut poetry chapbook: On the Tip of Your Mother’s Tongue https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a4e8288c027d88035c81044/efc0e13f-4dba-4d22-a1f4-9a0c9af099ab/Screen+Shot+2020-02-18+at+4.47.59+PM.jpg Writing - How to Reconsider Loving a Dominican Man 1: Identify the type of Plátano Is he maduro? Is he a boss who loves merengue, a lady killer with Trujillo shades on? Are his old school vibes too righteous for this world, quick to get a party started like Juan Bosch, only to bounce to start the next party? Is he blind to his own faults? An old man you’ve become so used to that you elect him over and over again over other men because you know you ain’t got no choice y la costumbre… … Purchase here at Word Up Community Bookshop https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a4e8288c027d88035c81044/1582064903123-N1THMK8TKUD1HBQRBCB7/Screen+Shot+2020-02-18+at+5.27.58+PM.png Writing - My Club Meant Everything To Me Jada Delgado is torn. She knows science is her future – she’s just not sure whether it’ll be in culinary chemistry or engineering. But she has some time to decide. In the meantime, the 12-year-old hasn’t let up on her other passion. … Read the rest at The Bronx Free Press https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a4e8288c027d88035c81044/1582063852739-8PYAQ407FN73MPD0LSBT/Screen+Shot+2020-02-18+at+5.10.27+PM.png Writing - How to Begin, Again Ydanis Rodríguez, the Councilmember who represents Inwood, argues that this rezoning proposal is not about pushing tenants out, but about an investment that will ultimately serve said tenants. … Read the rest at Manhattan Times https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a4e8288c027d88035c81044/ff317121-b457-4097-8aa2-4e2f8ae75af3/Screen+Shot+2022-12-08+at+11.54.02+AM.png Writing - Mary In a brothel outside of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, an English archaeologist finds a clay tablet with Latin writings. After careful study, historians believe it is the reproduction of a letter written by John the Apostle. … Read the rest at Digging Through the Fat https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a4e8288c027d88035c81044/1588201111047-79Z6KLFZJX9TK45CH5F9/Screen+Shot+2020-04-29+at+6.52.25+PM.png Writing - Yasica, Puerto Plata 1. When I lived in the mountains, I thought the same color meant the same taste. Tangerines, oranges and the sun. Citrus. When I saw my great-grandmother peel a tangerine with her bare hands while men used knives for oranges, she became God. I imagined what she could do with the sun. … Read the rest at Digging Through the Fat https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a4e8288c027d88035c81044/d4242104-9eba-49f1-81be-5011a694b18a/latinex+anothology+cover+small+3.jpeg Writing - Our Big Bang and Music as Harlem Both poems appear in The BreakBeat Poets Vol.4: LatiNext. Order here at Word Up Community Bookshop. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a4e8288c027d88035c81044/c083f0ac-3b47-4473-915e-8595acc666c4/Screen+Shot+2023-11-15+at+1.33.01+PM.png Writing - Winston Vargas, Sisters, Washington Heights, New York, 1970 Aquí y Allá (Bilingual/ Bilingüe) Photos by Winston Vargas & Texts by JP Infante Winston Vargas recalls his childhood in Santiago, Dominican Republic with few words. The 79-year-old lifelong photographer says, “I have very little memory of life before we moved to New York City”. What Vargas does remember is concise, like a photo caption. A truck kicks up dust on a road between Haiti and the Dominican Republic: “My father had a business and I remember him having a truck. He told me he used to travel to Haiti quite often.” A black and white television: “I do remember seeing my first TV in Santiago. I believe it was in a government building.” Vargas’ memories as an immigrant child in New York City are just as photographic. A 1950’s New York City horizon: “I remember entering Manhattan in a car crossing a bridge and seeing the skyline and all the lights.” A hand grips melting snow: “My father brought a snowball into the apartment. I asked, ‘Where did it come from?” Now available for download in eBook format. * Winston Vargas recuerda su infancia en Santiago, República Dominicana, con pocas palabras. El fotógrafo de 79 años, que ha dedicado toda su vida a este arte dice: “Tengo muy pocos recuerdos de la vida antes de mudarnos a la ciudad de Nueva York”. Lo que Vargas recuerda es conciso, como el pie de foto de una imagen. Un camión levanta polvo en una carretera entre Haití y la República Dominicana: “Mi padre tenía un negocio y recuerdo que tenía un camión. Me contaba que solía viajar a Haití con frecuencia.” Un televisor en blanco y negro: “Recuerdo haber visto mi primer televisor en Santiago, creo que fue en un edificio gubernamental.” Los recuerdos de Vargas como niño inmigrante en la ciudad de Nueva York son igualmente fotográficos. El horizonte de Nueva York de la década de 1950: “Recuerdo entrar a Manhattan en un coche cruzando un puente y ver el perfil de la ciudad y todas las luces.” Una mano sostiene nieve derretida: “Mi padre trajo una bola de nieve al apartamento. Le pregunté, ¿De dónde vino?” Ahora disponible para descargar en formato eBook. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a4e8288c027d88035c81044/99debf72-9a12-4ec9-9914-57ddd31d7784/Screen+Shot+2022-02-02+at+9.06.38+PM.png Writing - Between the Park & Home and Where Everything is From Between the park and home, a brown man is passed out in the middle of the street. My daughter asks, What happened? I explain liquor. … Read both poems at A Gathering of theTribes https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a4e8288c027d88035c81044/1582061779761-5JI6AZSFR1AJ98AKBQMX/Screen+Shot+2020-02-18+at+4.35.17+PM.png Writing - descent and Your Story Workshopped i had a dream that men were judged not by the content of their character- if they were allies- but if they were of european descent. … Read the rest at Rigorous https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a4e8288c027d88035c81044/1582062169481-MQM2PCGII4PAZ1S2R2AM/Screen+Shot+2020-02-18+at+4.42.13+PM.png Writing - Stories Dique Allegedly about Josefina Baez I’ve daydreamed hundreds of hours, imagining the day I would tell Josefina Baez the story about talking about one of her books with a sex-worker abroad. I didn’t even consider writing about it, I had to tell it. In high school, I stole a signed, first edition copy of Dominicanish from the Brotherhood Sister Sol’s library in Harlem. … Read the rest at The Acentos Review https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a4e8288c027d88035c81044/1582057381889-XLY8XMVTWB93KDHN90V7/Screen%2BShot%2B2020-02-18%2Bat%2B3.20.37%2BPM.jpg Writing - Buying Cocaine 2. I’m lying. This isn’t about you. Your dealer will overcharge you not because you’re white, but because you can afford it. This neighborhood is no different than that resort you went to in the Caribbean. Your dealer is more American than you think. He’s an aspiring capitalist just like those third-world resort workers. Platanos with Salami. Brugal with Coca-Cola. That light purple juicy warm hole inside that dark pitch-black woman. You were overcharged there. You will be overcharged here. … Originally published in The Poetry Project and now in JP Infante’s On the Tip of Your Mother’s Tongue. Purchase here. https://infantejp.com/contact-me daily 0.75 2024-04-11 https://infantejp.com/home daily 0.75 2025-03-13 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a4e8288c027d88035c81044/1619148510138-JGDJWVLQW1BB5VUARN4U/on_the_tip_of_your_mothers_tongue.jpg Home - Click to Purchase JP Infante’s debut and winner of the 4th Annual Thirty West chapbook contest, On the Tip of Your Mother’s Tongue, tells the story of a son grappling with his mother's mental health in New York City. “On the Tip of Your Mother’s Tongue is not really a chapbook, it is a pocket universe, a masterclass in sparse yet terse prose poetry. The second person point of view combined with that most potent of narrators, the child witness, recounting with the wherewithal of a now grown-ass man, deposits the reader firmly between the lines. It is there, in that space between the spaces that On the Tip of Your Mother’s Tongue haunts us, follows us around long after we’ve put it down, in the space of what remains unsaid. And still, there are moments of clean and direct devastation: “Your mother answered the HRA worker’s questions while you waited to be asked, ‘Is your mother crazy?’ You were never asked. Maybe because sanity wasn’t a requirement for food stamps or because the answer was known.” We have here a wonderful introduction to a writer with a fierce intellect and a sharp set of skills.” — Roberto Carlos Garcia, author of Elegies “JP Infante captures the complexities of addiction, homelessness, mental illness and racial identity through the lens of a son whose mother is dedicated to one thing; survival. On the Tip of Your Mother’s Tongue is a lesson in snapshot vulnerability and introspection. JP moves us rapidly through short scenes condensed with an emotional precision that forces us to slow down and contend with our own disasters. Whether on the tip of a tongue, or an iceberg, the magic in this chapbook is in what lives underneath, every word that has yet to be said.” — Elisabet Velasquez, author of When We Make it https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a4e8288c027d88035c81044/4d8bac01-9f52-48bc-b127-a13fef57d42e/Screen+Shot+2023-11-15+at+1.19.13+PM.png Home - Photos by Winston Vargas Text by JP Infante Bilingual/ Bilingüe "Aquí y Allá," a portrait of the Dominican community in Washington Heights, from its germination to its designation as “Little Dominican Republic.” An unprecedented photographic documentation that encapsulates 60 years of the evolution of Dominican culture and identity in Washington Heights. With photographs by Winston Vargas and Texts by JP Infante. Now available for download in eBook format. “Aquí y Allá," un retrato de la comunidad Dominicana en Washington Heights, desde su germinación hasta su reconocimiento como la “Pequeña República Dominicana”. Mostrando una documentación fotográfica sin precedentes que recoge 60 años de evolución de la cultura dominicana e identidad en Washington Heights. Con las fotografías de Winston Vargas y textos de JP Infante. Ahora disponible para descargar en formato eBook. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a4e8288c027d88035c81044/4cfdead2-5ffc-4e8d-a9b8-ce431c1e3a93/on+the+tip+cover+2nd+edition.jpg Home - On the Tip of Your Mother’s Tongue En La Punta de La Lengua de Tu Mama Bilingual / Bilingüe JP Infante's debut prose poetry chapbook won the 4th Annual Wavelengths Chapbook Contest in 2020. Now, it’s being republished with gusto. On the Tip of Your Mother’s Tongue is a dual language (English-Spanish) collection of prose and poetry. Expanded & revised, it is a story of a son grappling with his mother's mental health and his stepfather’s overdose in Washington Heights, New York City. Capturing the disastrous toll of the criminalization of drug use on communities, families, and individuals, Infante pairs literature with buying cocaine, screen time with addiction, and cinema with harm reduction. It’s modern literature. Critical, gritty, & emboldening, JP Infante is a masterful scholar of contemporary inner-city life. Click to Purchase https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a4e8288c027d88035c81044/1619148510138-JGDJWVLQW1BB5VUARN4U/on_the_tip_of_your_mothers_tongue.jpg Home - Sold Out JP Infante’s debut and winner of the 4th Annual Thirty West chapbook contest, On the Tip of Your Mother’s Tongue, tells the story of a son grappling with his mother's mental health in New York City. “On the Tip of Your Mother’s Tongue is not really a chapbook, it is a pocket universe, a masterclass in sparse yet terse prose poetry. The second person point of view combined with that most potent of narrators, the child witness, recounting with the wherewithal of a now grown-ass man, deposits the reader firmly between the lines. It is there, in that space between the spaces that On the Tip of Your Mother’s Tongue haunts us, follows us around long after we’ve put it down, in the space of what remains unsaid. And still, there are moments of clean and direct devastation: “Your mother answered the HRA worker’s questions while you waited to be asked, ‘Is your mother crazy?’ You were never asked. Maybe because sanity wasn’t a requirement for food stamps or because the answer was known.” We have here a wonderful introduction to a writer with a fierce intellect and a sharp set of skills.” — Roberto Carlos Garcia, author of Elegies “JP Infante captures the complexities of addiction, homelessness, mental illness and racial identity through the lens of a son whose mother is dedicated to one thing; survival. On the Tip of Your Mother’s Tongue is a lesson in snapshot vulnerability and introspection. JP moves us rapidly through short scenes condensed with an emotional precision that forces us to slow down and contend with our own disasters. Whether on the tip of a tongue, or an iceberg, the magic in this chapbook is in what lives underneath, every word that has yet to be said.” — Elisabet Velasquez, author of When We Make it https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a4e8288c027d88035c81044/4d8bac01-9f52-48bc-b127-a13fef57d42e/Screen+Shot+2023-11-15+at+1.19.13+PM.png Home - Aquí y Allá Photos by Winston Vargas Text by JP Infante Bilingual/ Bilingüe "Aquí y Allá," a portrait of the Dominican community in Washington Heights, from its germination to its designation as “Little Dominican Republic.” An unprecedented photographic documentation that encapsulates 60 years of the evolution of Dominican culture and identity in Washington Heights. With photographs by Winston Vargas and Texts by JP Infante. Now available for download in eBook format. “Aquí y Allá," un retrato de la comunidad Dominicana en Washington Heights, desde su germinación hasta su reconocimiento como la “Pequeña República Dominicana”. Mostrando una documentación fotográfica sin precedentes que recoge 60 años de evolución de la cultura dominicana e identidad en Washington Heights. Con las fotografías de Winston Vargas y textos de JP Infante. Ahora disponible para descargar en formato eBook. https://infantejp.com/awards-recognition daily 0.75 2025-01-13