Poetry & Purposeful Silence

Poetry and Purposeful Silence With Professor Jon Pineda

BY JAMELAH JACOB ‘23, APIA major Editor in Chief

As students trickle into the classroom, breathless after their strenuous climb to the third floor of Tucker, Professor Jon Pineda awaits them at the end of the table, scribbling on a notepad. The six students pull out their laptops and notebooks, silently waiting for the workshop to begin. Professor Pineda strikes a conversation with his class about books that they’ve read recently, which quickly turns into a fullfledged discussion on authors’ new works and their accolades. Sometimes, he talks about funny encounters with authors that his students only know by the contents of their books. But for Professor Pineda, these writers are dear friends and sources of inspiration. While his students chuckle in awe, Professor Pineda tells every story, smiling.

After joining the Creative Writing Program in August 2018, Professor Pineda immediately knew he made the right decision after connecting with a classroom of students. His favorite thing about teaching at William & Mary is leading workshop classes with his students, without considering their writing as student’s work. Here, he’s simply “in a room of poets.” Two years after his arrival, Professor Pineda now sits as the director of the growing Creative Writing Program, where he teaches classes on poetry, creative nonfiction, and fiction.

A seasoned writer, Professor Pineda began his career as a poet with his first collection, Birthmark, which is largely about his mestizo and half Filipino background. Professor Pineda says that this identity has helped him navigate his journey as a writer, as it has continued to be present in his following collections: The Translator’s Diary and Little Anodynes. Each collection has won various awards, such as the 2007 Green Rose Prize for Poetry and 2016 Library Virginia Literary Award for Poetry, which he won again most recently in November 2019 with his novel Let’s No One Get Hurt.

His other publications include the novel Apology and his single memoir Sleep in Me, which touch on similar topics and themes of identity. “There are opportunities for scholarship,” Professor Pineda said, “as it relates to critical reading of work by writers of color, about whose work is humanizing a culture for perhaps a mainstream American readership.”

Professor Pineda’s memoir Sleep in Me was included in Professor Tanglao-Aguas’ APIA 444 Filipino American & Diaspora Studies in the 2019 spring semester, where students in the class did a close reading of the text and analyzed the main character’s biracial Filipino American identity. Professor Pineda remains humble about this honor, stating that it feels amazing to be part of an Asian American literature syllabi, because he himself desired works that spoke about being mestizo when he was starting out as a writer.

“The acceptance of my work to where it would be taught and be offered on Asian American syllabi just lets me know that I’m on the path, that I haven’t veered away from it,” he said. “I had always written and published with the hope that I would connect with readers, and especially that I would connect with a reader who perhaps didn’t find the support and the voice until they had read my book--or something like that. It’s humbling.”

Professor Pineda hopes to continue this important conversation about Asian American literature. Since the publication of his novel Let’s No One Get Hurt in 2018, he’s been working on new projects, including several poems and a nonfiction piece about his father’s childhood in the Philippines. Additionally, Professor Pineda is close to completing a draft of his new novel.

“If this [novel] finds its way into the world, it’s hands down going to be the most experimental thing I’ve ever written,” he enthusiastically stated.

Back in the workshop, another student finishes reading through their poem. Professor Pineda sits through the subsequent lull in the room, letting every word resonate. Then, the poets get to work and the magic begins

In these classes, Professor Pineda learns from his students just as much as he hopes they learn from him. “Even if it’s quiet, even if it’s silence that we’re living within, it’s still purposeful silence and purposeful discussion,” he said. “That’s my favorite thing.”