The Quintin Collins Debut Collection Description:
 
"The poems in A Dandelion Speaks of Survival originate from a boundless imagination and are offered to readers with deft clarity in rhapsodic cadences. The collection is part bildungsroman in verse and part lyrical, poetic paens to cultural experiences steeped in familial and communal love, anguish and perseverance. Most readers will be unable to think of mosquitoes, tennis, a Caprice Classic, Air Force Ones, chess and dandelions the same way again."  - Jeffrey L. Coleman, Ph.D., Professor of English,  St. Mary's College of Maryland
 
“Deft, decidedly vulnerable and unapologetically Black, Quintin Collins' The Dandelion Speaks of Survival is an inspiring debut and much appreciated volume exploring self-definition under the brunt of race, class and masculinity. Collins' poetic vignettes delight in local vernacular, hang at street level, let us touch the dirt with our own hands such that we might feel, perhaps even understand, what it means to grow as the titular, undesirable weed. Collins' work reminds us, though, that beauty is only an orientation, a way the eyes are trained. By the end of this collection, we're not trying to root out the dandelion from our grounds but root for its continued resilience. We become the concrete and earth it splits open.” - Cortney Lamar Charleston, author of Doppelgangbanger
 
“Quintin Collins is a poet’s poet but not one so dazzled by his own formal dexterity and poetic imagination that he loses touch with the world. While tenderness and joy abound in this promising debut, the most powerful moments see 'fresh to death' boys, posturing and vulnerable, trying to tear a way out of the social contradictions, mislaid hungers, and racial erasure swirling around them in an American warpland.” - Iain Haley Pollock, author of Ghost, Like a Place
 
“There should be a collective noun to describe Quintin Collin’s poetry—a heat of poetry.  Poem-to-poem, it’s fierce and formidable, sensuous and hip. But it’s also a poetry that draws you pitch-perfect to unexpected notes— “call me weed, call me nuisance, call me pest, say I am not welcome, poison this soil to stunt my growth, know that I survive.” Revelatory, dazzling with wit and wisdom as it dismantles racism and a faltering America, The Dandelion Speaks of Survival is an extraordinary debut collection.” - Dzvinia Orlowsky
 
“A 'tornado' in the mouth of the right poet can 'scrape[] this country clean.' Collins enters immediately while knocking. His control of detail and shape break the skin with a music that is both shattering and melodic; it’s beautiful, but never conflates beauty with suffering. The poems 'move/between the master’s tools' with sublime precision. They remind us what ideas of manhood have made in the deep stakes of our American chessboard. Listen harder, and we’re all in there, in the empty spaces, grandmother’s house, tennis court. The dandelion has no time for daffodils. It’s about what things cost, and for whom the prices are inflated almost beyond endurance.” ​ - Tara Hart, Ph.D., Professor and Chair of Humanities, Howard Community College
 
***This collection will ship in April of 2021***