The Friday Influence

This week I am proud to feature the work of Quintin Collins whose debut collection The Dandelion Speaks of Survival arrives this month from Cherry Castle Publishing. I have been admirer of Collins’ work both on and off the page for a few years now. As an activist and organizer, Collins has helped foster a dynamic community as assistant director of the Solstice Low-Residency Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing Program.

On the page, Collins’ work is marked by a direct engagement with the physical world, lingering over it with a curious attention that pays off in nuanced and fateful meaning. In his poem, “Exegesis On a Chicken Wing,” the act of eating is given space so that it is honored but also meditated on in a way that gives over its essential stakes. That to be human is survival and celebration–this is a key message in Collins’ work.

In “This is Where You Belong” (below) one encounters a similar engagement with the physical world. Through a catalogue of a neighborhood, the poem ruminates over the coming and going of many lives with such clarity that nothing feels ephemeral despite its fleeting nature. Like Galway Kinnell, Collins writes of place with a gravity that is accessible and essential. One feels the weight of “The American flag, / two hundred fifty pounds of polyester” flapping over the life the speaker is witness to, but also feels the horizon it flaps against, made up of human life and sky.

About this poem, Collins states:

“This is Where You Belong” introduces the landscape of The Dandelion Speaks of Survival. The collection exists because of the setting, which is a Chicago suburb that derives much of its culture from the city. I like to describe it as a watered-down diet Coke version of Chicago. Following white flight and the destruction of certain projects in the city, we had a lot of transplants from the city throughout my childhood. Plus, even those of us from the area originally had a lot family with deep roots in the city. So I wanted to capture the intersection of suburb and city, as well as the shifting demographics, mundane sights, childhood joys, and a bit of the ethos of the late 90s/early 2000s.

Quintin Collins

*

This is Where You Belong

Where the Sears Tower casts a shadow across the land,
this is twenty-five miles southwest of Chicago. A wheat field cleared
for a billboard that announces an outlet mall that never broke ground.

& this is the Zenon J. Sykuta Elementary School
playground where kids broke skin against mulch. Splinters swam
in blood, boys kissed girls, lips wetted with dares.

& this is Atkin Park, where a sock-swaddled padlock swung
an eviction notice to an eye. Blood speckled hopscotch squares.

& this is Chris’ backyard, where concrete chipped
knuckles, where boys chased a jump ball, shared sweat,
put up shots for games of twenty-one, wobbled defenders.

& this is the creek ditch where victims emptied
pockets of a few bills, Pokémon cards, & Frooties. Big Moe peddled
away on someone’s Mongoose. He always said he was coming back.

& this is Kostner Avenue where kids flew
downhill on the same bike, arms extended, wind coasted over palms.

& this is another U-Haul truck going. & this is another U-Haul
truck coming. & this is another U-Haul truck
with a belly full of furniture, engine idled for arrival or departure.

& this is a For Sale sign. & this is a For Rent sign. & this is a For Rent Sign.

& this is the streetlight on 180th, outside St. Emeric,
where Keith’s mom whooped him in front of all of his friends
because sunset then stars beat him to his doorstep.

& this is a Cutlass Supreme with 24-inch rims
that rippled bass down Ravisloe Terrace, up Idlewild Drive.

& this is Country Pantry. That’s the AMC Loews. That’s the Walmart
where teens posted up in the parking lot, loitered
around their mother’s sedans, revved their hips to summer hits.

This is Country Club Hills, where I-57 & I-80 lace
like fingers interlocked over the city. The American flag,
two hundred fifty pounds of polyester, flaps over the land.

*

Copies of The Dandelion Speaks of Survival can be purchased from Cherry Castle Publishing.

Also, check out this event where Collins will read from this collection later this month along with poets Meg Kearney and Chloe Martinez.

Quintin Collins (he/him) is a writer, editor, and Solstice MFA Program assistant director. His work appears in many print and online publications, and his first full-length collection of poems is The Dandelion Speaks of Survival (Cherry Castle Publishing, 2021). His second collection of poems, Claim Tickets for Stolen People, selected by Marcus Jackson as winner of The Journal‘s 2020 Charles B. Wheeler Prize, is forthcoming from The Ohio State University Press/Mad Creek Books in 2022. See more of his work on qcollinswriter.com.