F. Douglas Brown

cantfindit

F. Douglas Brown is the author of two poetry collections, ICON (Writ Large Press, 2018), and Zero to Three (University of Georgia, 2014), winner of the 2013 Cave Canem Poetry Prize selected by US Poet Laureate, Tracy K. Smith. He also co-authored with poet Geffrey Davis, Begotten (URB Books, 2016), a chapbook of poetry as part of the Floodgate Poetry Series. Brown, an educator for over 20 years, currently teaches English and African American Poetry at Loyola High School of Los Angeles, an all-boys Jesuit school. He is both a Cave Canem and Kundiman fellow, and was selected by Poets & Writers as one of their ten notable Debut Poets of 2014. His poems have appeared in the Academy of American Poets, The PBS News Hour, The Virginia Quarterly (VQR), Bat City Review, The Chicago Quarterly Review (CQR), The Southern Humanities Review, The Sugar House Review, Cura Magazine, and Muzzle Magazine. He is co-founder and curator of un::fade::able - The Requiem for Sandra Bland, a quarterly reading series examining restorative justice through poetry as a means to address racism. Source

How to Tell My Dad that I Kissed a Man

Blame your drag queen roommate—Lamar by day, Mahogany 

by night—and then blame his sequined dresses—all slit high [   ]

 

Explain that dusk smells so different in Spain—musky cherry—

tight tangerine burst—sage mixed with lavender

 

Tell him you were under the influence of bees or bats—

the spin and swirl of doves

 

Tell him you were half asleep—about to leave to the dunes just 

west of Madrid—better yet say forest—he knows that 

crazy [   ] happens in a forest

 

[   ]

 

Tell him timing

 

Tell him ease

 

Tell him sweat and sweat

 

Tell him lips

 

[   ]

 

Tell him flat-chested

 

Tell him, “crook”—I mean, “creek”

 

Tell him tales—lies—tears—water—weakness—churros—

chocolate—hot—heat—heave—  

 

Hush

 

Hush

 

Hush

 

Tell him anything you want—then tell him

 

You did it again

Published:

2014

Length:

Regular

Literary Movements:

Contemporary

Anthology Years:

2021

2023

Themes:

Agency

Family

LGBTQ+ Experience

Literary Devices:

Anaphora

a figure of speech in which words repeat at the beginning of successive clauses, phrases, or sentences

Interrupted Clause

a word group (a statement, question, or exclamation) that interrupts the flow of a sentence and is usually set off by commas, dashes, or parentheses