Join us Saturday, March 15th at Word Up Recirculation from 1:30-3pm as we discuss the release of JP Infante’s ON THE TIP OF YOUR MOTHER’S TONGUE/ EN LA PUNTA DE LA LENGUA DE TU MAMÁ. This dual language (English-Spanish) collection of prose and poetry captures 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. This event is in collaboration with Dominican Writers Association.

“These paragraphs remind me that growing up often seems like an initiation into secrets—just learning them but understanding which ones to share and which ones to keep.” —Yuka Igarashi, executive editor of Graywolf Press

Author JP Infante and translator Francis Mateo will be in conversation with moderator Roberto Carlos Garcia.

In compliance with Word Up Community Safety guidelines, all attendees are encouraged to stay masked at all time.

This event is a $5 suggested donation ticket with 50 attendees max. Please register in advance.

Recirculation, a project of Word Up Community Bookshop, is located at 876 Riverside Drive (near 160th St.) in Washington Heights, NYC. You can take the 1 train to 157th St., A/C train to 163rd St., and the M4 and M5 to Broadway and 159/160th.

ABOUT THE BOOK

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 for New Yorkers & U.S. Americans. Critical, gritty, & emboldening, JP Infante is a masterful scholar of contemporary inner-city life.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

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. He has been awarded scholarships and fellowships from Baldwin for the Arts, NY State Writers Institute, PEN America, and the Center for Fiction.

ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR

Francis Mateo’s poetry and short stories have been published in magazines in Argentina, Germany, and Dominican Republic. He performs poems from his book of poetry Ubre Urbe, with the band La Sovietika. Francis has acted in off-Broadway and off-off Broadway productions with the Public Theater, Classical Theater of Harlem, Repertorio Español, and more, and his film work includes working with directors Melvin Van Peebles, Spike Lee, among others.

ABOUT THE INTERLOCUTOR

ROBERTO CARLOS GARCIA is the author of several books, including What Can I Tell You? Selected Poems, as well as the founder of Get Fresh Books Publishing, a literary nonprofit. The recipient of a 2023 fellowship from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, he writes about the Afro-Latinx and Afro-diasporic experience. His work has been published in Poetry Magazine, NACLA, The Root, Poets & Writers, and the anthology BreakBeat Poets Vol. 4: LatiNext, among others.