Derrick Austin
Author of Trouble the Water
About the Author
Works by Derrick Austin
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Common Knowledge
- Gender
- male
- Birthplace
- Homestead, Florida
- Education
- University of Tampa (BA)
University of Michigan (MFA) - Short biography
- Derrick Austin was born in Homestead, Florida. He received a BA from the University of Tampa and, in 2014, an MFA from the University of Michigan. He is the author of Trouble the Water (BOA Editions, 2016), selected by Mary Szybist for the 2015 A. Poulin Jr. Prize. A Cave Canem fellow, he currently serves as the 2016–2017 Ron Wallace Poetry Fellow at the Wisconsin Institute of Creative Writing.
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Statistics
- Works
- 3
- Also by
- 5
- Members
- 37
- Popularity
- #390,572
- Rating
- 4.1
- Reviews
- 1
- ISBNs
- 5
Just great. I didn't really care for the series of poems following the author's travels with friends through Mexico, but the best of the poems in this collection are memorable, precise, and fantastic. From the voice of a queer black American, some recurring themes are intimacy, art, religion, and trauma.
"Whistler painted The Peacock Room / 140 years ago. Slavery had no been excised / from the Americas. I've wanted / to be hurt into gold."
Damn. As with most poetry, you either feel it or you don't, but if you feel it enough you go back to read it again over and over. That was me with "Black Docent."… (more)