3 Books Published by Cherry Castle Publishing on AALBC — Book Cover Collage

Poems in The 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 paeans 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

“Brian Gilmore’s We Didn’t Know Any Gangsters weds the wily clarity of Lucille Clifton to the cultural acuity of James Baldwin. "Res ipsa loquitur" ("The thing speaks for itself"), Gilmore says in one poem, recasting William Carlos Williams’ dictum: "no ideas but in things," as a statement of self-determination and witness. Stereotypes, and clichés about African-American life are obliterated by poems that are vibrant, distinct and unequivocally American. Political, personal, exceptional—this is a remarkable book about what it means to be us.”
—E. Ethelbert Miller, award-winning poet and Director of Howard University’s African-American Resource Center

“In We Didn’t know Any Gangsters, Brian Gilmore creates a work of architecture, populating it with people we’ll never forget. Novelists and playwrights do this all the time, but when a poet creates a big stage with fascinating characters, that is technique and that is triumph. Meet a young man growing up, meet his family, see a society sometimes unsafe—and experience real life, expertly drawn, with pulsating, fast-moving, innovative, lyricism. The motor inside his poetry hums with prophecy and politics, but there is even more—there is a beautiful heart at the center of his writing, and poems are messages torn from it, sorted out, and, put all together to make up our human history. Brian Gilmore proves he was obviously born to write, and it’s our good fortune.”
—Terrance Hayes, MacArthur Fellow, 2010 National Book Award Winner

Truth Thomas’ Speak Water won the 2013 NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work in Poetry. It chronicles the human quest to conquer hate with love, a grand and piercing collection of midrashic poetry, written from an African-American perspective. It is framed by both the Old and New Testaments of the Bible, as each poem references some aspect of every book contained in Scripture. This homecoming work, Thomas’ third full collection of verses, is the first to be published in the United States, and reflects breakthrough poetry from one of America’s finest writers.

"There is a certain spirituality always in the poetry of Truth Thomas. Speak Water resonates with Thomas’ unique blend of the spirit and the self. He has his own grounded language, and delivery, a cadence that is urban and historical, today, yesterday, tomorrow, but all the time, universal and willing to fight. He is a literary traveler; he goes where the best words are, the best thoughts, he reaches deep into his soul to understand the beauty of people, the songs of those that matter." —Brian Gilmore

"Truth Thomas offers powerful verses and insightful reveries, then relieves the ironic pain with reasoned succor—first-aid for the wounded soul. He weaves meanings and codes from biblical notes, personal anecdotes, and political knowledge wielded through experience beyond his years—a mix between Nikki Giovanni at her finest, and Gil Scott-Heron at his sharpest. The poet’s musical cadences and true timing are impeccable, pleasing, charming, and biting. It is truly inspiring to read verses with such lyrical soundings of Black America that are revelatory, romantic, spiritual and political." —Dr. Ricardo Guthrie, San Diego Poetry Guild, Assistant Professor of Ethnic Studies, Northern Arizona University