Overview

With style reminiscent of his influences- Amiri Baraka, Nikki Giovanni and Tupac- Donté Clark was named Richmond Poet Laureate for a reason. He is one of the RAW (Richmond Artist and Writers) griots of Richmond, capturing the deep fear, thick joy and every day rhythms of his city, from the old men on the stoop to the boys gathering with their cousins on the corner to their mommas waiting for their babies to come home safe. In ""Close Caskets,"" Donté brings language to the complex trauma of growing up consistently losing loved ones to gun violence while also navigating systemic oppression- he teaches us that ""under poverty is a ceiling"" and ""beneath the boy is hunger."" But despite all of the triggers that could lead him to thirst for vengeance, Donté continues to choose life. To choose love. He continues to craft a counter-narrative of resilience and rebirth, breaking cycles of generational trauma, healing himself and readers alike through his powerful storytelling. Donté paints hilarious and heartbreaking portraits of his family and takes us on a tour of his neighborhood, mapping his emotional landscape and memorializing all of his loved ones taken too soon. With this collection, they are inked into our collective memory forever. As one of his fallen friends once prophesied, ""keep doin' you, you might be the one that saves lives. Molly Raynor

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9780999303986

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Donté Clark aka DONBLAK, a native of Richmond California, reigns as one of the most prolific writers and voices out of the Bay Area arts community. Donté is not only eclectic in the art of storytelling through the spoken word, his body language and musical presence in performance is poetry in itself. He captures the complexities of what it feels and looks like to be vulnerable within Black masculinity while governed by a society of white supremacy and hyper violence amongst Black youth. Graduating high school in 2008, Donté co-founded an arts collective RAW Talent (Richmond Artist With Talent). Based in his hometown of Richmond, Donté engaged young people in writing and performance workshops. Securing space for the youth to process their trauma and rewrite the narrative that has surrounded their community. In 2013, RAW Talent led by Donté and co-director Molly Raynor, published Té's Harmony, a play documenting the shared experiences of Richmond's youth parallels Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. The writing process for Té's Harmony was filmed and presented in Romeo Is Bleeding, the documentary produced by Russell Simmons on All Def Digital in 2017. After winning over 30 awards at film festivals all across United States, Donté was able to travel the states speaking at high schools, college/universities and community forums about Romeo Is Bleeding and his experiences helping young people excel in the art community. In 2016, Donté was featured in film Kicks (2016), a tale of urban youth and their rights of passage to manhood. He also co-starred in two seasons of The North Pole show, a political comedy on docu-series about gentrification and its effects on communities of color in North Oakland California. October 2018, 10 years later after co-founding RAW Talent, Donté published his first collection of poetry KNOWFREEDOM (CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform. October 2018 and available on Amazon). His collection of original song lyrics, and short poems, illustrates the struggles Donté and many young Black men experience and observe as the Black community journeys through America to finally Know freedom.

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