It took a long 10 minutes to find the right spot on campus to talk. Paolo Javier, an English teacher at Poly, peaked into classrooms, rejected the full library, and turned away from Commons. “This’ll work,” he said, opening the door to the back of the chapel. Warm-up scales echoed through the empty pews from a student practicing the piano on stage.
It had been almost two years since the first interview for the first profile — a longer, life-story conversation outside on a bitter November afternoon. Since then, Javier has published another of many books of poetry and moved onto his third year of teaching at Poly. “I feel like I’ve got my land legs here,” he said, despite “still trying to find my place.”
Javier has struggled to find his place in the past. He grew up in the outskirts of Manila, moved to Westchester at age 12, attended high school in Cairo, and went to the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. After a stint teaching in Miami, he ultimately moved to and fell in love with Queens.
Similarly, Javier needed time to figure out exactly what poetry meant to him. The restlessness of Queens is found in his poetry books, which are filled with far more than words. “Oh my, the elevator pitch for it.” Javier took a deep breath before explaining the style of his newest book, True Account of Talking to the 7 in Sunnyside. “It’s anchored in poetry but has images, has collaborations with other artists but is really interested in collage and in capturing the flux of being a poet in a very diverse, plural, fluid place like, like Sunnyside and Western Queens.”
Javier’s experimental poetry finds itself far from the bounds of poems found in “bougie journals” like the New Yorker, as he puts it. He allowed himself time to push away industry norms and publish his own version of poetry. Between 2010 and 2014, he was the poet laureate of Queens before becoming the Program Director of an organization called Poets House.
Javier said that 98 percent of poets have second jobs. According to a 2013 NPR article, “that job has overwhelmingly involved teaching in university departments of English and/or creative writing.”
In 2021, in the midst of the COVID pandemic, Javier introduced himself to another community. “The fact that Poly brought me in really made me believe in Poly’s seriousness to welcome the strengths that I bring into teaching: this [Asian American Pacific Islander] AAPI lens, this immigrant lens,” he said.
This fall, he’s teaching the first AAPI literature class at Poly. The History Department is offering its first Asian American history course this spring.
“How I teach my classes, I think really welcomes students to think about literature in addition to the domestic lens, and really think from the outside,” said Javier.
After a significant number of faculty departures, Poly has brought in a wave of new, diverse faculty this year.
Having bounced around a lot in life, it’s notable that Javier is, in fact, still here. “I actually really love teaching here at Poly,” he said, attributing his longer-than-usual stay to the school’s commitment to growth, his genuine enjoyment of teaching at Poly, and his colleagues in the English Department. “I count quite a number of them as mentors, even though they resist that term.”
But more than anything, Javier notes that he’s giving himself time, the same way that he gave himself time to settle into Queens and find his place in poetry. “So just to be honest and fair, I’m giving myself as much time as possible,” he said, “and to earn myself as much time as possible here at Poly to really grow with the community and be a part of the solution.”
While navigating Poly, a new challenge arose: Javier spent the past year helping his partner navigate her cancer battle. “It really does shake the ground under you.”
According to the New York State Health Department, 115,000 New Yorkers are diagnosed with cancer each year.
“I owe so much to [my partner],” said Javier. I owe my joy. I owe my life as an adult, as a parent, as a partner, and as a father to her.
The website cancer.net highlights the different changes in a relationship after a cancer diagnosis, including emotional needs, relationship roles, and responsibilities. Javier said he’s been in caregiver mode and childcare mode more than ever.
“Seeing and supporting my partner in this new role and seeing her as a survivor … really made me reconsider a lot of things that mattered to me in my life,” said Javier, “and definitely affected how I plan moving forward.”
It took him time to open up and share that experience in the interview, just as he’s needed time his whole life. Javier’s path is a stark contrast from the mainstream TV show themes that are now crescendoing from the piano on stage, through each challenge, he finds his way.
At Poly, Javier is giving himself time to find his place, to find his voice. “I think that’s been my main goal in terms of trying to really be present in my department,” he said. “[to] have a voice, and to give myself permission to have a voice.”
