Bio

D'mani Thomas (he\they) is a writer, and creative from Oakland, California (Ohlone territory). He’s interested in the tiny moments that capture attention spans. They have received fellowships from UC Berkeley’s Art & Research Center, The Watering Hole, Foglifter and others. In 2023, they became a finalist for the Penrose Poetry Prize and were awarded a California Arts Council grant through Youth Speaks. D’mani’s debut chapbook, Grown-up Elementary, is now available through Black Lawrence Press. Outside of poetry, catch them studying horror movies, dancing, and eating too many fries.

Project

In the Midst of Pendulums, otherwise known as Black morse, is a poetic research project interested in exploring the relationship between surveillance and intimacy. Through several memories detailing a boy’s induction into queer sex culture, juxtaposed against a history of mass surveillance in the United States and elsewhere, the author hopes to create a reliable memory of queer experience(s) by exposing how everyday activities exist between coded intimacies and coercion. The framing question for this project: If you found out surveillance was a technology of war, would love also become one?