A Year of Questions

AJ Juarez is of the Ashiwee and Yeomen First Nations (Zuni and Yaqui). Poet, artist, writer, and musician, he is the founder of Noh Place Artists Cooperative and the former lead singer for The Ghost Shadows, a seminal Worcester band known for its unusual blending of Jazz, heavy metal, funk, Native American songs, and straight ahead rock. His Native flute musings can also be heard on John Zaganiacz's Virtual Equinox recordings.As a student he coordinated the Poetry Center at Worcester State College and was a founding member of The Center for the Study of Human Rights. He was deeply involved in the No Nukes and Anti-Apartheid movements. He is a lifelong Jazz aficionado and a former Jazz host at WCUW (91.3 FM). His Jazz poetry and artwork can be seen on the jazzhistorydatabase.com website. His art work has also been used on book covers and as illustrations. In the 2018 exhibition, "A Forty Year Retrospective" at the MAP Gallery in Easthampton, MA, AJ and his visual arts mentor, Michel Duncan Merle, highlighted their collaboration as artists and poets.AJ lives on a lake in Western Massachusetts.