Tal Berkowitz Photo.
The program room at the Ives branch of the New Haven Free Public Library was packed last Thursday evening, as the library hosted the latest edition of its “Author Talk” series, this time featuring Connecticut-based poet and artist Monica Ong.
The event consisted of a short presentation, an interview of Ong by author and Ives branch librarian Catherine Egan, an audience Q&A, and a sale and signing for Ong’s 2025 collection Planetaria.
Ong describes herself as a visual poet, a term for poets who combine graphic and written elements in their work. In the case of Planetaria, Ong overlays her writing onto maps of the solar system and star charts. In one particularly stunning piece, called “Star Gazer,” Ong repurposes a medieval astronomical device called a volvelle into a process for generating poetry.
Just as 13th-century astronomers calibrated the volvelle to specific dates and times in order to predict lunar phases and the position of the sun, Ong invites her readers to calibrate “Star Gazer" to dates and times important to them. Each different alignment of the device produces a unique poem consisting of the same star-imprinted phrases, which can be read left-to-right, bottom-to-top, or inverted in either direction.
Ong showcased “Star Gazer’s” linguistic expanses during the presentation by aligning the device to March 4, the birthday of Korean-American artist, writer, and poet Theresa Hak Kyung Cha. The resulting poem read like this:
you are here / to enter the palace of your life / to meet yourself / on the side / of the road / arms waving / beneath a tender sky / don’t scold / don’t fall in the grass / face-down / this body counted among us / slow the car to a purr / doors unlock / from the terrace / secret sails / drifting / towards / the wing of the red bird / time’s curtain / draws open / a temple of incense / my heart in ashes / step off the moonstone / the way Chang'e floats over swelling waters / who carries you / a beacon / of ghost kin / your solitude / a deeper well / where / rivulets flow / willows tap the kitchen window / stars ascend arrows / to the land of God and soil / women warriors gather / take comfort / lifting voices over / the vast silence / a circle of battle soldiers / weak / heap of corpses / a pond of glass / self-slander’s / bloodmoon / mansion of darkness / eavesdrops / wound & whispered in the / womb / a prayer in nine doors / still holds the unseen promise of a meadow / your orchard of handheld poems / your silver horses / find their feet / in pools of silt / in / the fog’s outward gaze / we share / in dream revision home is woven from sky / not skin / whatever it is you withhold from yourself / give it generously
“Star Gazer.” Tom Virgin photo, taken from Jacquelyn Gleisner’s review of Planetaria at the Institute Library.
Ong thinks highly of Hak Kyung Cha, especially her acclaimed 1982 book Dictee. “[It] reflected back to me my natural impulses to combine found images and photos with concrete poetry and fragmented narratives,” she said. , “The response that I had was ‘I’ve never seen anything like this before’... [W]hen someone can say that about my work, it’s one of the highest compliments.”
Ong’s work has received many such compliments. Since debuting Planetaria at the Institute Library in June of 2021, the collection has risen to cosmic heights. It was exhibited in 2022 at Chicago’s The Poetry Foundation (publisher of Poetry magazine), before moving to the Hunterdon Art Museum in Clinton, New Jersey.
As it toured the country, Planetaria was praised by critics and members of the public alike. While on display in Chicago, Timothy Yu reviewed the collection favorably on The Poetry Foundation website. Ong recalled a story from around the same time of a working nurse rushing to see the show after her shift ended. “
She told me ‘this book changed my relationship with my family,’” she said, “Whenever I struggl[e] to go forward with something really new or scary, I go back to that moment… what I hope is that anyone who creates gets to have that kind of moment.”
Guiding burgeoning creatives toward making meaningful work was one of Ong’s main goals for the artist talk, she said. Over the course of the lecture, she highlighted five key principles of her creative process, which she says relies on a “spirit of play and experimentation.”
These principles were sometimes pointed toward producing better work. Take the third, for instance: to “be in service to the work,” meaning that artists should prioritize improving a piece over any original design or vision. Or the second: “form is the shape of content,” meaning that the form a piece is presented in should emulate the themes and motifs of the piece itself.
Ong’s general advice, though, was more varied. She didn’t avoid talking about the creative process, showering aspiring artists in tidbits of wisdom such as “authenticity is more intentional than intention,” meaning that what appears to be meticulously planned symbolism, self-referentiality, and interconnectedness can result from doing what feels right and letting your subconscious handle the rest.
Just as much, though, her guidance was witty and pragmatic. “They’re like ‘you need to learn to read the greats,’” she said. “No. You need to learn to read a contract.”
Ong also sought to communicate her experience with self-publishing to the audience. Before starting her micropress, Proxima Vera, which set Planetaria to print for the first time last fall, Ong had considered publishing through established names in the industry. However, the offers she received never suited her creative needs.
In addition to facilitating creative freedom, Ong pointed to several other advantages of publishing through a micropress. “Many publishers will spring a predatory contract on you,” she said, adding, “why is it that when the artist originates these beautiful ideas, these middlemen make off with all the money?”
Ong found the process of starting Proxima Vera surprisingly easy, she said. She was able to fund much of her work with grants, and she learned the basics of owning a small business from classes administered by Assets for Artists and small business mentors SCORE.
Ong recommended artisan publishing to the audience. “[It] begins with you,” she said, “the question I’ve always found myself asking is ‘what is the path I’m going to build to support this vision?”
As the event drew to a close, Ong let the audience in on one final secret: the nature of her upcoming book, Color Theories. An autobiographical photo essay, Color Theories will pair dozens of photographs from Ong’s life each with a poem generated in response to the names of five paint color swatches matching colors clipped from it.
“I’m always happy to connect with the New Haven audience,” said Ong. “They’re some of my favorite people.” It’s no surprise, then, that Egan and fellow librarian Alexandria Robison were able to orchestrate Ong’s return to the library.
Ong first spoke at Ives as a member of a poetry panel around two years ago. Robison was introduced to Ong’s work while she was researching Connecticut artists to appear at that event. She was instantly impressed. “I really loved the integration of images and texts. It’s so artistic,” said Robison. Robison showed Ong’s work to Egan, and they invited her to take part in the six-person panel.
While preparing the library’s summer programming for this year, Ong seemed like an ideal candidate for an author talk. “Monica has been doing some really amazing things, and so we wanted to get her to come and talk to other poets who [are] interested in learning how to make a career out of being a poet,” said Robison. “Her work is so beautiful, and she recently came out with a book, so we thought it would be a really good fit for her to come and talk again.”
The “Author Talk” series continues on Saturday, August 15, as musician and composer Elliott Sharp visits Ives to perform and discuss his book FEEDBACK: Translations from the IrRational. The event will last from 2 to 3:30 p.m. It will be free, unticketed, and open to the public.
Tal Berkowitz is a graduate of the 2025 cohort of the Youth Arts Journalism Initiative (YAJI). He is a rising senior at Wilbur Cross High School.