Author: Donté Clark, Close Casket

Close Caskets, is an intergenerational collection of poems about life in Richmond, California from the perspective of author, activist, educator, and actor Donté Clark. Clark delivers a visceral interpretation of how his world view was shaped by his location ̶ a landscape that placed him in the middle of trauma, love, hardship and triumph.

Donté Clark, aka DONBLAK, a native of Richmond California, captures the complexities of being vulnerable within black masculinity while governed by a society of white supremacy and hyper violence amongst black youth. In 2008, he co-founded an arts collective called RAW Talent (Richmond Artist With Talent). In 2013, he published a co-written play entitled, Té’s Harmony, which documents Richmond youth while making parallels to Romeo and Juliet, also documented in the film Romeo Is Bleeding, and was executive produced by Russell Simmons on All Def Digital in 2017. Donté is featured in a film Kicks, 2016, and in 2018, he co-starred in two seasons of The North Pole show, a political comedy about gentrification in Oakland, California. His first collection of poetry, KNOWFREEDOM was published in 2018.

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