A very special evening is in store on Friday, September 6. We are thrilled to welcome Cass Donish back to Skylark to read from Your Dazzling Death, their new collection of poems. This stunning work, written in the devastating aftermath of the suicide of their partner, the poet Kelly Caldwell, is an exploration of queer time, and a powerful expression of nonbinary and trans love in the wake of traumatic loss.
The evening will also celebrate the publication of Kelly Caldwell’s own collection, Letters to Forget. With searing intelligence and great sensitivity, these poems (many of which are addressed to Cass) swim through a complex matrix of transformations: mental illness, divorce, gender transition, and self-discovery. Both striking and elusive, both raw and learned, with a delicacy of syntax that challenges us to interrogate becoming itself, Kelly Caldwell asks: What kind of fragile agency is at the heart of obliterating change?
The evening will consist of readings from both books. Guest readers will read from Letters to Forget, and Cass will read from Your Dazzling Death. There will also be live music. Come and help us celebrate these two wonderful books.
Queer poet and writer Cass Donish was born and raised in the Greater Los Angeles Area. They are the author of the poetry collections Beautyberry and The Year of the Femme, winner of the Iowa Poetry Prize, as well as the nonfiction chapbook, On the Mezzanine. Their work has appeared in The American Poetry Review, Denver Quarterly, The Gettysburg Review, Guernica, The Iowa Review, The Kenyon Review, Poem-a-Day, VICE, and elsewhere. Donish received an MA in cultural geography from the University of Oregon, an MFA in poetry from Washington University in St. Louis, and a PhD in English and creative writing from the University of Missouri. They live in Columbia, Missouri.
A trans poet, writer, and visual artist, Kelly Caldwell was the winner of the Norma Lowry Memorial Prize and the Cornelison English Prize from Washington University in St. Louis, an Academy of American Poets University Prize, and the 2019 Greg Grummer Prize. Her writing has appeared in Denver Quarterly, Entropy, Fence, Mississippi Review, The Missouri Review, Seneca Review, The Rumpus, and VICE. She was founding editor and co-editor-in-chief of The Spectacle. Caldwell died in March 2020. At the time, she was living in Columbia, Missouri, with her partner, the writer Cass Donish. She was posthumously awarded an honorary PhD in English from Washington University in St. Louis.
