About this user
Poet, Writer, DJ, and Teacher, Marlon Unas Esguerra is a second generation Filipino American Muslim, born and raised in Chicago. Marlon received his BA in Poetry from Columbia College-Chicago. This May, he will receive his MFA in Poetry from the University of Miami, and will join the 2007 Cohort of NYC Teaching Fellows.
In 1998, he co-founded the panAsian spoken word ensemble, I Was Born with Two Tongues, which has since performed in over 300 colleges and venues across the country. The Tongues' pioneering performance work and critically-acclaimed debut CD, "Broken Speak" (AsianImprov Records), sparked a new generation of APIA voices. He is also the co-founder of the Asian American Artists Collective-Chicago, YAWP! Young Asians with Power!, Undocumented Sons, and the National APIA Spoken Word & Poetry Summit.
Marlon is the author of four chapbooks: Goodnight Nobody, Thirty-one Dollars Per Hour, When the Blood Leaves You, and, When the Filipinos Arrive in Wicker Park. He is currently completing his first manuscript of poetry entitled, homestay, and is co-editing a new anthology with Nick Carbo, Son of the Dragon: Literary Dialogues with Asian American Men. His work has been published in Monsoon, Screaming Monkeys, Pinoy Poetics, Columbia Poetry Review, MiPo Magazine, Crab Orchard Review, South Loop Review, Bombay Gin #32, and Indiana Review.
Marlon is a three-time Chicago poetry slam champion and recently performed on Russell Simmons Presents Def Poetry on HBO. His digital media work has shown nationally and internationally, with most recent exhibitions in Philadephia, Ho Chi Minh City, and the Gene Siskel Film Center in Chicago. He has forthcoming digital media exhibitions in Perth, Australia and Toyko, Japan.
As a Program Coordinator and teacher for Young Chicago Authors, Marlon has worked in the Chicago Public Schools, Alternative High School system, and Cook County Juvenile Detention Center for over six years.
Marlon's most recent awards include a Michener Teaching Fellowship, the Wallace Douglas Award for Excellence in Teaching, a Columbia Award for Scholarship, and two Eileen Lannan Poetry Prizes from the Academy of American Poets. He is a proud Kundiman and VONA Fellow. In 2002, Chicago Public Radio compared Marlon's work to Carl Sandburg's, naming him a, "Next Voice of 21st Century Chicago."
Companies
NYC Teaching Fellows, University of Miami, YAWP!, Undocumented Sons, Two Tongues, Young Chicago Authors, ASM/Gallery37, OCA
Schools
CUNY City College, University of Miami, Columbia College-Chicago, University of IL Urbana-Champaign
