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Monica Ong is the author of Silent Anatomies published by Kore Press. Planetaria, her series of astronomy-inspired visual poetry was exhibited at the Poetry Foundation gallery. Her fine press poetry editions and literary art objects have been acquired by institutional collections worldwide. She is a 2024 United States Artists Fellow.
About the Poem
“This work was an enjoyable improvisation of text and image created during a risograph residency at Directangle Press this summer. I love thinking in color and working in discreet layers because it challenges me to consider the alchemy happening between the various elements and the ‘heat’ I can create through iterative decision making, with words, with design choices, with play, which is also how I write as a visual poet.
The photo is from the mid-1960s on the day my father was about to board the plane from the Philippines to America for the first time. He stands in the center wearing a lei of flowers around his neck helmed by his parents and relatives, all of them looking solemnly at the camera. Who knows what is on the other side of the water? The other elements are drawn from early textbooks on optics, exploring the relationships between light and water. I alter words, layer shapes, let the colors vibrate in the way only riso inks can. I was happy to give myself space to think in color because it too is another kind of syntax, the way prayer is another kind of vibration.
To this day, I marvel at the great unknowns that my father faced while embarking on a journey that fundamentally shaped my trajectory. When we look at family pictures together, I can’t help but feel admiration for his courage as well as appreciation for the profound fortune that accompanied him, us, along the way.”