WestWords warmly invites you to the launch of J. Marahuyo's debut poetry collection crying gorgeously; 4:37am published by WestWords Books.

crying gorgeously: 4:37am is, at once, both an unravelling and the composition of personhood. This debut poetry collection is a series of experiments, a body erupting in defiance and resistance to the language being rained upon it. Wrapped in pervasive loneliness and othering, J. explores the effects of dysfunctional family dynamics, colonialism and patriarchal structures on mental health and identity.

“… these poems are akin to a conceptual hadron collider, walloping images and languages together with such striking intensity and experimental energy … In Marahuyo’s subliminations of identity, sexuality, ethnicity, and hybridity, an intimate autobiographical portrait emerges … crying gorgeously is an ode to transcendental transmutation.” – Luke Carman

When: 1st May, 2025, 6.30pm
Where: WestWords Western Sydney Centre for Writing, 41 Hunter St, Parramatta
Free RSVP

Join us for an intimate evening of poetry, celebration and Filipino finger-food! J. Marahuyo will be in conversation with essayist and poet Lucia Tường Vy Nguyễn, followed by audience Q&A.

Attendees are encouraged to bring along their own pillows, to sit on the floor, for a 'story-time' environment. Chairs will be available for those with accessibility needs.

Books are available for purchase and signing at the event.

This event is also live-streamed! Watch from home via this link: West Words is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.

Topic: Launch: Crying Gorgeously; 4:37am
Time: May 1, 2025 06:30 PM Canberra, Melbourne, Sydney
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/8276...

Meeting ID: 827 6350 7200

J. Marahuyo is a neurodivergent Filipino-Australian award winning poet. She was shortlisted for the Newcastle Poetry Prize 2024, won the Writing NSW-Varuna Fellowship 2024 and won the Living Stories Prize 2024. Crying Gorgeously: 4:37am is her debut collection.

Lucia Tường Vy Nguyễn
Lucia Nguyễn is a Vietnamese Australian writer interested in exploring Southeast Asian folklore, ludic violence and global technoculture. Her writing has been featured in publications such as Kill Your Darlings, Runway Journal, Art Collector and LIMINAL’s non-fiction anthology, Against Disappearance (Pantera Press, 2022). Independently, she has been commissioned by galleries such as 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art, Fairfield City Museum & Gallery and Pari (forthcoming). With her friend and collaborator Reina Takeuchi, she has exhibited at SomoS Art House Berlin and Outer Space Meanjin/Brisbane and co-written an essay for Going Down Swinging, which won the Non-Fiction category for the 2022 Woollahra Digital Literary Award. She is invigorated by the opportunity to play and dream within, around, or even outside capitalist structures of ‘work’.