Day.’ With these two words Donald Quist lays bare the bitter and intimate reality of being Black in America. The importance of Quist’s work is immeasurable.” Robert Vivian’s ( All I Feel is Rivers: Dervish Essays & Immortal Soft-Spoken) review says: “‘Every. The stories within reflect the burden of stereotypes and caricatures on the Black psyche-a familiar experience to anyone who has felt pressure to perform or behave in a certain way because it is what others have dictated. Tyrese Coleman ( How to Sit: A Memoir In Stories and Essays) wrote: “ To Those Bounded has wide-reaching implications. The writing, sometimes poetic, sometimes scalpel-sharp, viscerally conveys Quist’s vigilance, heart-break, and hope. Weeks later, he lies about knowing her during jury selection, wanting to serve as a juror to help give a Black man on trial a fair outcome.ĭonald Quist’s new essay collection, To Those Bounded, is the personal narrative of a Black author and academic addressing those bounded by structural racism, exploring loneliness within racist institutions, and trying to carve a shelter for himself and others who are labeled other. And, like the movies he critiques, ultimately question our own gaze as the camera draws intimately close.A resident assistant tries to break up a brawl between college athletes, but, as a young Black man, he doesn’t want to call the police for help.Īn eighth grader who is labelled “dangerous” sits in detention, trying to understand the mathematical concept of bounded functions.Ī Black journalist rides along with a white female police officer for a shift. By inviting the reader into these essays, he asks us to explore the knife’s edge between desire and risk and the longing to be simultaneously seen and not seen, questioning what we lose, if anything, when we’re heard and recognized. “Charles Jensen’s cinematically structured essays seamlessly blend film studies and memoir. A hybrid in the best sense, Cross Cutting combines poetry and prose on the page in a way that feels organic and fresh.” - Tyrese Coleman, competition judge and author of How to Sit “Right from the first few sentences, Jensen’s language and story in this chapbook immediately draw you in. These hybrid essays splice together the memory of a lived experience with critical analysis of a film, expressing in the juxtaposition of these two narratives the way responses to events, recollections, and art intertwine and inform one another. Winner of the 2020 OutWrite Chapbook Competition in Nonfiction, selected by Tyrese Coleman.

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