Posted on July 2, 2025

No games, no hiding behind clever wordplay. Just you, the pavement, and whatever truth you're carrying.

Walking those cobblestones, I kept thinking about Queens. About our workshops in cramped community centers. About poets spitting fire on subway platforms while commuters pretend not to listen. The hunger translates. Paris poets, NYC poets, we're all chasing the same ghost. That moment when words hit air and suddenly the world shifts.

Under that golden dome, watching Rodin's bronze fingers frozen mid-creation, I saw us. Every poet grinding in NYC basements, every dreamer riding the late train home from open mics. The streets don't lie, whether it's Boulevard Saint-Germain or Northern Boulevard.

Here's what Paris taught me: the tension between your voice and the community's voice isn't a problem to solve. It's the fuel that drives everything. Every Sunday in that city, smoking cigars under the Tower, watching tourists aim their cameras skyward, I realized we're all simultaneously the observer and the observed. We document our communities while becoming part of their story.

This experience clarified something about our NYC scene. We're not just hosting readings and workshops. We're creating laboratories. Spaces where resistance meets creativity, where individual expression serves collective transformation. Poetry in urban spaces isn't decoration. It's documentation. It's survival. It's the blueprint for what comes next.

Paris reminded me why I do this work in Queens, in the Bronx, in every corner of this city that raises us. We're not just making art. We're making culture, making community, making tomorrow.

Next workshop, next reading, show up. Bring your truth. Let's build something that outlasts the cobblestones.

Keep creating.

Faust