Quintos, Danni 2023
They ask me where I’m from & the answer is hundreds of years old. Is that last name Spanish? From Spain? I sharpen my claws & answer carefully. Originally, I say, because colonization. They tell me they need to read up on that. When I split in two, they don’t understand, they speak louder & slower, they explain what should be done instead.
– Danni Quintos, “Self-Portrait as Manananggal”
Watch Danni Quintos’ 2023 reading with Kien Lam at the Chicago Poetry Center:
Danni Quintos begins at 20:09 minutes.
We walked to Wal-mart
& bought Something
About Mary & after watching
it in the nighttime basement,
I wished I could just be
like my cousin, smoking secret
cigarettes with gangly boys
under the dock, or like Cameron Diaz:
– Danni Quintos, “Who I Wanted To Be Instead”
Watch Danni Quintos read from her poetry collection Two Brown Dots:
Read Danni Quintos’ interview with Boa Editions:
A Spoonful of Nutella and a Caboodle: An Interview with Danni Quintos
Danni Quintos is the author of the debut poetry collection Two Brown Dots, which was selected by Aimee Nezhukumatathil as the 20th Poulin Prize winner. This collection was published by BOA Editions on April 12, 2022 and explores what it means to be a racially ambiguous, multiethnic, Asian American woman in Kentucky.
