Poetry / Christian J. Collier 

From the writer

 

:: Account ::

These three poems are part of my the­sis for grad school. The cen­tral theme of the work is an array of things and peo­ple that have haunt­ed the speak­er over the course of his life. I think, as an Amer­i­can man, a South­ern man, and a Black man alive today, allow­ing myself to be more hon­est and open in my life and in my cre­ative writ­ing has been a nec­es­sary endeav­or, espe­cial­ly giv­en the dis­course sur­round­ing man­hood and mas­culin­i­ty the past few years. Addi­tion­al­ly, by turn­ing inward and writ­ing about not only myself but where I grew up and moved back to as of a few years ago, I gained the abil­i­ty to speak out­ward in a man­ner that was new for me. I’ve arrived at a place where I can reject, inter­ro­gate, etc. many of the ways I was con­di­tioned or, as a means of sur­vival, con­di­tioned myself as a man. As a result, I chal­lenged myself to extend grace to for­mer selves as well as the flawed indi­vid­u­als who have, since the 90s, left deep impres­sions on me, and I see each of these poems as being illus­tra­tive of that task. 

Chris­t­ian J. Col­lier is a Black, South­ern writer, arts orga­niz­er, and teach­ing artist who resides in Chat­tanooga, TN. He is the author of Greater Ghost (Four Way Books, 2024), and the chap­book The Gleam­ing of the Blade, the 2021 Edi­tors’ Selec­tion from Bull City Press. His work has appeared in The Atlantic, Poet­ry, Decem­ber, and else­where. A 2015 Loft Spo­ken Word Immer­sion Fel­low, he is also the win­ner of the 2022 Porch Prize in Poet­ry and the 2020 Pro­For­ma Con­test from Grist Jour­nal.