WAYE Editorial Team

WAYE Small Press is run by John T. Trigonis and Marinell Montales, owners of Sure Things, where WAYE: A Poetry Reading Series is hosted every month. For Issue 02, they are joined by Theta Pavis and I. Buenaventura as Guest Readers to help with the selection process.


  • Marinell is a freelance creative director and prop stylist living in Jersey City. Her work has appeared in House Beautiful, Chronogram Magazine, and Brownstoner among others. She has produced work for notable brands like Pholk Beauty and Eighty Magazine, a large-format print magazine she founded and ran as designer and creative director, publishing seven issues between 2014 and 2019. She owns vintage shop/used bookstore Sure Things with her partner, John, and when she's not at the shop or working on collaborations with other brands and local businesses, she's spending quality time with her two orange tabby cats, Cheddar and Colby-Jack.

  • John is a performance poet and published author of eight chapbooks. With the obligatory MFA in poetry writing from Brooklyn College, a Pushcart Prize nomination, and a single written-on rejection slip from The New Yorker beckoning him to send more, his work has appeared in over five dozen magazines and journals that have made appearances on the bottom shelf of the Barnes & Noble newsstand. Some of his favorites include Harpur Palate, The California Quarterly, Rockland Review, Poetry Salzburg, Iodine Poetry Journal, and most recently in The Arcade of the Scribes 2023 anthology and The Red Wheelbarrow 16. 


    Trigonis has been a part of the open mic scene since the mid-nineties and has been a headliner at nearly three dozen venues ranging from Art House Productions, The Waterbug Hotel, and Hoboken’s once prestigious Liquid Lounge and Monochrome Mondays series to Jersey City's own Backroom Broadsides series and The Silver-Tongued Devils and Phoenix Reading series in NYC. Most recently, he's headlined at Wordbeat and The Grantwood Poetry Series. He also plays master of ceremonies at WAYE (We Appreciate Your Enthusiasm), a monthly poetry reading series he and his partner host at their vintage shop/used bookstore in JC Heights. He is currently working on a new chapbook while seeking a publisher for his first book of selected poems, Old ‘89 and Other Bangers.


  • Theta Pavis is a poet, editor and educator. Her writing has appeared in The Journal of New Jersey Poets, The Red Wheelbarrow, Mom Egg Review, Spillwords Press, Why to These Rocks: 50 Years of Poetry from the Community of Writers (HeyDay Books) and many others. Her chapbook The Red Strobe was recently published by Finishing Line Press. Her poems have also been performed onstage by Poetry Well in New York. She's received residencies from Arts By The People in New Jersey and the Bethany Arts Center in New York. She works in college communications and has taught journalism at several universities, including UCLA and Rutgers. She's reported for a range of newspapers, magazines and websites, including Wired, Discover and the Online Journalism Review.

  • I. Buenaventura (a.k.a Patrick) is a poet based in New Jersey. They hold an MFA in Design & Technology from Parsons School of Design. In addition, Patrick has practiced and taught both self-defense and martial arts for more than three decades. They self-published a book on self-defense for women called Your Body is Your Weapon: The Little Self-Defense Handbook, which they illustrated and wrote in free verse poetry. In October 2023, the book was awarded an Honorable Mention in the Inspirational / Self-Help Category of the 31st Annual Writer’s Digest Self-Published Book Awards. 

    Their poetry has also been published in Slant'd Magazine and By the WAYE Issue 01, and Patrick has been a featured reader at various events in New Jersey and New York. 

    An activist for LGBTQ+ rights, Patrick fought for marriage equality in New Jersey in 2013. In 2022, Patrick began transitioning full-time and identifies as transmasculine and non-binary. 

    Patrick participated in an NPR interview on adults who transition past midlife and have been documenting their transition in a series of poems. Much of Patrick’s creative work serves as a form of activism in support of the trans community.

Previous Guest Readers:


  • Benedicto Figueroa is a self taught poet, visual artist, and performance artist. Figueroa is the former Poet Laureate of Union City, NJ. They have toured with the performance poetry group The Mayhem Poets and have written and starred in the stage play SickLove for No Peeking Theatre. Figueroa has been published in Instigatorzine, Lamplighter Magazine, Jersey City Independent, the anthology Solo Para Locos, was a spotlight poet for PityMlik Press in 2023, and was featured in Pinky Thinker Press where they were the Editor’s Choice recipient. Figueroa is a member of the band Just Now Orchestra who’s debut album DOUG was released February 2020. Benedicto was also one of the 2020 Smush Gallery Summer Residency residents and recipient of the 2022 ArtHouse Cares Grant. In 2023 Figueroa received a Jersey City Arts and Culture Trust Fund Program Grant which they used to fund the TEXT-FOR-POEM Project of which they are the creator and Artistic Director. Their illustrated zine “When a Great Darkness Meets an Extraordinary Light” was published in 2021 and their immersive poetry installation “Are You There?” opened in November of 2022 at SMUSH Gallery where Figueroa was named Co-Artistic Director in 2021. Most recently they produced the performance art piece “On The Tongue” as part of the International performance art festival Jornada De Puertas Abierta and co-produced the performance art piece Cathedral of Stone and Water with Larissa Belčić for City of Water Day 2024.


  • Raul Garcia is a Dominican-American poet and filmmaker native to Jersey City, NJ whose written works include his recent micro fiction collection Atlands, by Bottlecap Press, as well as other fictions published in Bright Flash Literary Review, Complete Sentence, and Friday Flash Fiction.