Cjones Headshot

Constantine Jones

b.1992

Constantine Jones is a Greek-American thingmaker raised in Tennessee & housed in Brooklyn. They facilitate creative writing workshops & have displayed or performed work across New York City. Their debut, IN STILL ROOMS, was published via The Operating System on March 4th, 2020 & they are constantly at work on a multi-modal poetry project called [Ruins.In.Progress.]

Poem For You 12 . 1 . 21
Anniversary
In The Good Old Days When Times Were Bad
Magpies
First Of The Year
Check Yer Pockets Even Though
That House From Before
Still Here Still Not
I Burn My Feet On Welcome Mats Across The City
My Body
Pietà
Long Black Veil
Ekate
Soon You Better Feel Hope Reprise
Danaë
Mnemosynon
So It Happened
Death's Playground (Reprise)
Unsafe Conditions
Heard It On The Radio BK polaroids 21 2019
In The Summertime When We Were Still Little
Charon
Never Said Home We Always Just Called It The House
Winter In Progress
Lakhesis
Synnefiasmeni Kyriaki
Make Me Down
New Year's Eve and I Can't Sleep
All The Saints
Hi Ma
Mary Sings The Blues
Jimbo
You Dance Just Like Yer Yiayia Used To
O, Deth
Agia Barbara
Invocation
Jake
Sonja
What Was His Name Again
Can I Come Over I Need To Rest
Please Hold
Month Of Sundays
Death's Playground
Deth Medley Blues
5 Years Take I BK
5 Years Take II BK
5 Years Take III BK 2018 1
5 Years Take IV BK
5 Years Take V BK
Sappho
Pluto Homogenic
To Bring You My Love
Last Year In Middlesboro Well We Always Had It All TN
Sister Schizophrenia '87 TN
Dont Say Nothing TN
The Sprawl 2nd Verse TN
Cross the Breeze TN
Hey Joni Put It All Behind You TN
Margarets Table TN
Paw Bunks TN
Wave of Mutilation TN
Blister in the Sun TN
Street Halo BK
Teen Dusthead BK
Ghost Hardware
Soon You Better Feel Hope
Image description: Polaroid photo of a bedroom corner with black bookshelf, a stack of cardboard boxes, four plastic Police barricades draped in yellow and pink caution tape, and two white shelves with black drawings of figures on them. The left figure is of a little girl waving, the right figure is of a man with one foot raised, the word WALK written underneath.
Image description: Polaroid photo depicting the artist on a bed in black mesh shorts and a blue and white cloth mask, looking over their shoulder towards the camera.
Image description: Polaroid photo of a blue wooden Police barricade with a torn strip of yellow caution tape that reads "without"
Image Description: Polaroid photo of a blue public mailbox with silver graffiti and a shred of paper taped to the surface where the word STRENGTH in bold black in is barely legible. Title taken from a line in Diamanda Galas' performance piece, Plague Mass.
mage Description: Polaroid photo of a hardwood bedroom floor featuring stacks of books, votive candles, a paper lamp and a square cardboard record packaging with a red sticker that reads FRAGILE.
Image Description: Polaroid photograph of a wooden bowl of dark red cherries on a pale lavender cloth background. There are aberrations in the film along the bottom border. Titled after a Lucinda Williams song of the same name.
Image Description: Polaroid photograph of a collection of pink and yellow flowers in a white ceramic vase with blue design. Titled after a Lucinda Williams song of the same name.
Image Description: The back of a Polaroid photograph featuring a smudged black screen and the text "For Ryan Lonely Girls / Essence 8 13 20" on the bottom white frame.
Image Description: Digital screenshot of seven Polaroid photographs arranged in a kind of collage. Pictured are a bundle of pink and yellow flowers, a wooden bowl of cherries, a piece of yellow caution tape reading WITHOUT, a blue mailbox reading STRENGTH, the artist dressed in black mesh shorts and blue and white face covering, two ink figures drawn on white shelves, and text in the bottom right corner reading "For Ryan Lonely Girls / Essence".
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[Ruins.In.Progress.] is an ongoing multi-modal poetry project combining elements of memoir, research, photography, sound-art & performance to document the collision of various aspects of my own identity as they exist with & further complicate my Queer experience--HIV + in a "post-epidemic" America / Greek / Southern / Working-Class. Landscapes of urban & rural construction sites / demolition zones / gentrification areas serve as the points of collision for these identities while also providing a language for me to explore the strange kinship I feel for other structures & spaces in constant flux.

Contact

PUBLICATIONS

Book, IN STILL ROOMS (The Operating System) [2020]

Poem "For the +" included in Hear Me: Voices of the Epidemic, sound & light installation at the NYC AIDS Memorial Park in commemoration of World AIDS Day [2020]

Poems “ABSTRACT—[for potential reality]” & “NAPSALM (for the +)—Book of Isaiah 61” selected for Indolent Books HIV Here & Now countdown to World AIDS Day series. [2019]

Contributor to Joanna C. Valente's #Survivor photo book (The Operating System, 2020) & interviewed for ongoing photo series exploring the aftermath of sexual violence.

Text art piece “Sorry But You Can't Come In” published at Yes, Poetry [2019]

Hybrid photopoem & sound art piece “VOICEOVER—SAPPHO” published in Interim [2019]

Hybrid photopoem “[ island bruise ]” & Poem “A NOTE ON THE TEXT—” published in Bombay Gin [2019]

Poem “ABSTRACT—[for potential reality]” published in Fugue [2019]

Poem “FOOTNOTE TO POLITICS1” & Story “Liver” published in SHIFT [2019]

Hybrid photopoem “[ news from below ]” published in Hematopoiesis [2019]

Hybrid photopoem “[ cloudy sunday ]” published in Stone Pacific Zine [2019]

Hybrid photopoem “[ please hold ]” published in Blood Tree Literature [2018]

Poem “THE GUT” published in The PEN Poetry Series [2018]

Contributor to HIV Awareness Project, And So It Happened [2018]


AWARDS / READINGS / WORKSHOPS OFFERED

[2020]

  • Poem For You / Stubborn Hope workshop @ Dec. Brooklyn Poets YAWP
  • Re-Visioning the Timeline fall poetry workshop @ Brooklyn Poets
  • Chorus of Selves summer poetry workshop @ Brooklyn Poets
  • Operating System Marathon Reading @ Sala Diaz, AWP San Antonio
  • Digital featured reader, Flight Recorder @ The Tank NYC

[2019]

  • Poem “Crossroad Blues / O, Deth (Reprisal)” voted Poem of the Year at Brooklyn Poets Annual Smackdown.
  • Performance of Deth Medley Blues project as headliner for CCNY MFA Reading Series.
  • Performance of “Ordinary Poem” at Walt Whitman Way Street Naming Ceremony in Brooklyn.
  • Poem “SCREENING” selected by Mark Doty as 2nd Prize Winner, Brooklyn Poets Walt Whitman Bicentennial Contest.

[2018]

  • Multimedia performance of [ Ruins.In.Progress ] as headliner for
    Open Expression Salon, hosted by Lenox Café, Harlem New York.


EDUCATION

M.F.A. City College of New York [2017]

  • Discipline: Hybrid poetry / fiction / memoir

B.A. Middle Tennessee State University, Murfreesboro TN [2014]

  • Major: Creative Writing
  • Minor: German Language & Literature

WORK EXPERIENCE

  • Adjunct Assistant Professor, CCNY [2015—present]
  • Courses taught: First Year Composition / Writing For the Humanities / Advanced Prose Workshop / Intro to Creative Writing Workshop / Intermediate Creative Writing Workshop / Writing for the Social Sciences
  • Managing Editor, Fiction [2016—2020]
  • Publishing Assistant, Guernica [2015—2016]