Lehman Assistant Professor Juan Jesús Payán presents his new poetry collection Cadencia Rota (Interrupted Cadence)

For Lehman College Languages and Literature Professor Juan Jesús Payán, words are like music; so much so that when unveiling his new collection of poems, he jumped on the piano to demonstrate the musical concept behind the title of his book: Cadencia rota (Interrupted Cadence).

Payán’s poetry is inspired by his experience as an intellectual and an immigrant. During the presentation, Professor Ulises Gonzales (Journalism and Media Studies) and Prof. Payán talked informally about the multiple issues approached by the poems of Cadencia rota: family, love, friendship, and the links between literature and other art like music and cinema.

Payán is a two-time Ph.D. Graduate (Universidad de Cádiz, Spain and UCLA), a six-years music student, and a college professor with teaching experience in the West and the East of the United States. 

Organized by Yini Rodríguez, Assistant to the Dean of Art and Humanities, this well-attended event celebrated the power of literature, and the work Payán does to connect Lehman College students to the richness of the Spanish language. Also in attendance was award-winning Dominican fiction writer Rey Andujar, a professor from Governors State University in Illinois.