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    Autopsy
    Autopsy
    Autopsy
    Ebook66 pages35 minutes

    Autopsy

    By Donte Collins

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    About this ebook

    Written after the death of his mother, Donte Collins’s Autopsy establishes the poet as one of the most important voices in the next generation of American poetry. As the book unfolds, the reader journeys alongside the author through grief and healing.

    Named the Most Promising Young Poet in the country by the Academy of American Poets, Collins's work has consistently wowed audiences. Autopsy propels that work onto the national stage. In the words of the author, the book is a spring thaw -- the new life alongside the old, the good cry and the release after.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherButton Poetry
    Release dateJul 6, 2020
    ISBN9781943735259
    Autopsy
    Author

    Donte Collins

    Donte is a 21-year-old queer, black poet. Named the first Youth Poet Laureate of Saint Paul, Minnesota, they are the author of Autopsy (Button Poetry) and winner of the 2016 Most Promising Young Poet Award from the Academy of American Poets. They are an alum of TruArtSpeaks, as well as a current board member of Black Table Arts. Donte resides in Saint Paul, Minnesota, where they hibernate during the winter and seriously consider purchasing a warmer yet less fashionable jacket.

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    • 5/5
      Una poesía potente, desgarradora y bella. Collins comparte su dolor ante la muerte de su madre, la cual lo lleva a explorar su ser en el mundo: su homosexualidad y el deseo, su adopción, su relación con su madre, el racismo. Exploración que hace a la par que busca las formas óptimas para comunicar su emoción, en este sentido es admirable el dominio que tiene del lenguaje y la forma (dada su juventud). Un libro que me sumergió por completo en el mundo poético que Collins crea, en el que hace llorar junto con él.

    Book preview

    Autopsy - Donte Collins

    Author

    DON’T TELL YOUR UBER DRIVER YOU’RE GOING TO AN ORGY

    besides, her name is diane & she only has this job

    because her niece says she should be more social

    do not, nervously, try to cover up your mistake by

    saying you meant b-oar-d mee-tin-g. besides, it’s

    3 a.m. & the only things open this late

    can

    also

    request

    another

    thing

    to

    open

    do not try to cancel the ride. it is not your account. those who

    sent for your body were kind enough to pay the $15.50 it took

    for you to arrive. your nails are already too jagged to chew on

    you’ve produced enough sweat to fill the vehicle & drown

    you both. you consider headphones. you consider ripping out

    your tongue in fear of confessing more & before you reach for

    the handle to tuck & roll clean out of her 2004 Honda Civic

    she says:

    how many

    bodies will you try on tonight / & suddenly she is your mother

    or her ghost

    & suddenly your blood stiffens / retreats / rewinds / no one died

    the casket

    is still just wood / unchopped / reassembled / the tree, resurrected

    working &

    grief is not yet a garden of thorns blooming

    in your chest

    & grief is not yet a question you’ve answered with sex

    the slow

    teasing out of sweat like loose thread unraveling

    your sadness

    & look: you’re just a boy / grieving until he too is a thing

    to grieve / until

    his pulse is as thin & damp as an obituary panting beneath quaking

    hands & what

    is an orgy, if not the opposite

    of a funeral, if not an attempt to

    press your

    pulse to as many strangers as possible: to compare

    how alive

    you still are. & isn’t the car now your mother’s hearse / parading

    her body

    to that freshly gutted plot of earth & suddenly you are the driver

    / suddenly

    the sky breaks a sweat / its whole body blue & ballooning wet

    but you’re also the casket

    but you’re also the soggy grave parting its

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