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. They are joined by Raul Garcia, former contributing editor of Afterword Magazine, and Benedicto Figueroa, former Poet Laureate of Union City, NJ.


  • 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.


  • 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.


  • 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.