Destiny O. Birdsong

Destiny O. Birdsong is the author of the poetry collection, Negotiations (Tin House Books, 2020), which was longlisted for the 2021 PEN/Voelcker Award, and the triptych novel Nobody’s Magic (Grand Central, 2022), which was longlisted for the Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize. She was the Hurston-Wright Foundation’s inaugural Writer-in-Residence at Rutgers University-Newark and now serves as a 2022–23 Artist-in-Residence at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville.

Reading List

There Are No Perfect Synonyms for Brother

Destiny O. Birdsong  | 
Issue 72.1 Fall 2023

We have never seen each other’s blood. They found opiates in his, antibodies in mine. We break against the past in different ways. I locked myself in someone’s college and drank. I invited myself to dorm rooms. The boys came. He broke into a house to smoke. He’s looking for a cheap gun with our […]

abattoir errata

Destiny O. Birdsong  | 
Issue 72.1 Fall 2023

< the daughters / on sally jessy / were occupation babies / half korean / half german // nobody said rape in the ’80s // the daughters / broke through dead mothers / & were drop-dead gorgeous / lashes / heavy like palm fronds / feathered bangs / over […]