Repeat As Needed coming soon for purchase!
Praise for Repeat As Needed
Dustin Brookshire’s Repeat As Needed begins with “When I was Straight,” one of the most moving and memorable poems of the last decade. Like many of the poems in this collection, it is an “after poem” inspired by a poem of the same name by Maureen Seaton. Although most of the poems in this collection are provoked by poems written by Brookshire’s poetic mentors, the unmistakable voice is entirely his own. In a terrifying time, as rights of LGBTQIA+, women, immigrants, and differently abled people are being systematically dismantled by the current administration, this book is more important than ever. “Straight people/will say they love us/and vote for politicians/seeking to strip us/of our rights,” he writes in “Straight People.” While many of these poems grapple with painful experiences, they also understand, as Toi Derricotte wrote, “Joy is an act of resistance.
—Jennifer Franklin, author of If Some God Shakes Your House (Four Way Book)
Whether he is writing poems about growing up gay and Southern Baptist, about playing dress up or with Barbies, about heartache or house cleaning (in this case, they are the same thing), or about what straight people think, Brookshire’s poems are clever, sharp, honest, and deeply felt. Reading his work is like having a heart-to-heart with a friend. The pleasures offered by his wry and witty poetry is nothing short of irresistible.
—Nin Andrews, author of Son of a Bird (Etruscan Press)
What I love most about Brookshire’s poetic voice is its nerve—its boldness in a world that seems hellbent on silencing queer ecstasy, laughter, heartbreak, sorrow. Instead, this book offers poetry as chatty defiance, as documented survival in the wreck. I’m ecstatic about this book. I invite you to repeat reading it, as needed.
—Jessica Q. Stark, Author of Buffalo Girl and Poetry Editor for AGNI
Dustin Brookshire (he/him) is the author of the chapbooks Never Picked First For Playtime (Harbor Editions, 2023), Love Most Of You Too (Harbor Editions, 2021) and To The One Who Raped Me (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2012). Love Most Of You Too and Never Picked First For Playtime were finalists in the Poetry Chapbook category of the American Book Fest’s Best Book Awards in 2022 and 2023, respectively.
Along with poet Julie E. Bloemeke, Dustin is the co-editor of Let Me Say This: A Dolly Parton Poetry Anthology (Madville Publishing, 2023). In 2024, Let Me Say was awarded a Nautilus silver medal and named to the “Books All Georgians Should Read” list by the Georgia Center for the Book. In 2023, Let Me Say This was a finalist in the Poetry Anthologies category of the American Book Fest’s Best Book Awards. The Slowdown, episodes 1109 and 1139, featured poems from Let Me Say This. In September 2024, Let Me Say This inspired the Poetry Well produced Let Me Say This: A Dolly Parton Tribute Concert at Joe’s Pub.
Dustin is recipient of the 2024 Jon Tribble Editors Fellowship at Poetry by the Sea and a runner up in the 2024 Desert Rat Residency Poetry Contest. In 2021, he was a finalist for the Key West Literary Seminar’s Scotti Merrill Award. Dustin has been twice nominated for the Best of the Net and Pushcart Prize. In 2023, his work was featured in Georgia Poetry in the Parks.
Dustin’s poetry has been published in numerous journals, and he’s been anthologized in Divining Divas: 100 Gay Men on their Muses (Lethe Press, 2012), The Queer South: LGBTQ Writes on the American South (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2014), Braving the Body (Harbor Anthologies, 2024), and the forthcoming Invisible Strings: 113 Poets respond to the songs of Taylor Swift (Ballantine Books).
More at dustinbrookshire.com.