Andrew Colarusso: The Editor At Large

The basement of the Broome Street residence hall resembles a children’s labyrinth; the mythical dungeon that every elementary school is thought to have. Worn, blueberry colored carpeting line the hallways where paper cut outs of musical notes and club fliers are taped to the fading yellow walls. The maze of hallways leads to meeting rooms, janitor closets and the utilities room; these are the entrails of the entire building, the no man’s land.
Tucked away in one of these rooms, Andrew E. Colarusso, 19 hums with a quiet presence. He has a short build. His cropped, chocolate brown hair forms a cap above a thin and defined nose separating his face into symmetry.
His baby face matches his soft spoken nature and both amounts to an understated exterior. His personality is slow and warm like the rhythm of a jazz solo and when Colarusso speaks his words leak out like quiet oil spills.
That wednesday night Colarusso waits for the start of his eight o’clock meeting, he hardly says more than two words before 8:10. Perhaps he’s nervous. It’s the first meeting for “Apo(phonic)”, the art anthology born largely from an idea Colarusso threw around with Solmaz Sharif, a Residential Assistant at Broome Street and a published poet. Now, what was only an idea months ago was going to become a published collection of poetry, fiction and photography submitted by students, run by students and distributed to New York University and the surrounding artists of New York City.
“I always wanted to head a literary journal collecting different people’s works and display them and send it out to different people who’s interested in reading something good.” Colarusso said said.
The basis of “Apo(phonic)” is inspired by Apophenia, the experience of seeing connections in random or meaningless data and “Phonics”, the manner of teaching literacy through sound and speech. ‘’Apo(phonic)” will be a blank slate where people can connect by sharing their subjective experiences using art as the icebreaker said Colarusso.
“So if you’re reading the same poem with your friend, you’ll think it’s one thing and your friend will think another thing. I mean essentially it’ll create discussion and dialogue between people on how the world looks to them.” said Colarusso.
Colarusso started writing when was he was young. In the 4th grade he published his first paper in a collection showcasing elementary students and education. His short stories and poems, like the one titled “Allophonic Loom Blooms” the runner up in The Poetics of Cloth Creative Writing Contest at NYU confront identity, race, and sexuality. Identity is a theme that rings hardest for Colarusso whose mother is Afro-Latino Puerto Rican and father is Italian American; his parents never married because of his paternal grandmother’s opposition to a “dark skinned woman.”
Born in Brooklyn, NY he moved to live with his grandparents in Puerto Rico when he was one year old. He moved back to Brooklyn shortly after with his grandparents to reunite with his mother. He saw his real father every other weekend but it was with his mother and his maternal grandparents who Colarusso developed a strong attachment with.
Now he has branched out to writing about the world as as he sees it, literally. He’s influenced by movies and enjoys creating visuals with words.
“I’m influenced by whatever I see and find particularly moving. It could be as small as a lady bug or as big as my obese friend” said Colarusso with a low laugh.
In a recent essay about racism in America, he penned the image of his grandfather, Elias Sanchez running away from black “Morenos” in 1950’s Harlem. He creates everything from fictional dialogues heavy with disappointment to poems the beauty and the ugliness of human affairs; he’s influenced by fifty percent allusion and fifty percent life. Colarusso sees writing as a way to escape while examining reality.
Colarusso plans to distribute Apo(phonic) by early May, but he already has problems. For one thing he’s new to the publishing jargon he needs to learn to even converse with printing companies. And there’s the other tricky thing of getting the word out about the journal, so far his scope is limited to Facebook friends. Even still he’s confident. In many ways “(Apo)phonic” is the manifestation of Andrew Colarusso. They are both subdued, patiently waiting for a bright future. It may turn out that beneath their quiet facades lies a treasure trove of talent. Colarusso is optimistic. Even before “(Apo)phonic”’s inaugural issue comes out he’s already planning his legacy; in the next two years he’s hoping to pass his position on to another Broome Street student .