Empathy
Claire Donato05.20.19
“Once, I typed all of my secrets into an anonymous Internet survey. After I was done typing them, I pressed ‘send.’ Who, I wonder, was the recipient of my shame?” Claire Donato with a moving personal essay, inspired by Cigarettes After Sex’s “Affection.” Art by Sara Jimenez.
I Love You In the Grocery Store: An Interview with Caitlin Pasko
Claire Donato11.20.18
Claire Donato in conversation with singer-songwriter Caitlin Pasko about the process of collaboration, literary art, loss, and Pasko’s stunning new album Glass Period.
Donnie Darko
Claire Donato10.29.18
“On October 31, 2018, I let Frank come into my apartment.” Queer rape-revenge fiction by Claire Donato, set in a future Halloween, featuring two-way mirrors, Joy Division, Frank the Rabbit, and Ka-Tzetnik 135633’s House of Dolls.
Unpublishable: THIRST
Claire Donato10.19.17
In the third installment of Unpublishable, Claire Donato explores wine, thirst, feeling, and sickness with her piece, Thirst.
IT WOULD HAVE BEEN A SHAME TO LET SOME OTHER WOMAN HAVE IT: ON JOANNA NEWSOM’S DIVERS
Claire Donato02.20.17
Claire Donato explores her own emotional, existential, and political terrain surrounding the boundary-breaking experience of Joanna Newsom’s Divers.
ELEVEN DRONES TO ACCOMPANY A MONTAGE CONSISTING OF SEVERAL CENTERS OF GRAVITY
Claire Donato11.21.16
“At once, you are in the foreground and the background of your life.” Claire Donato explores projection, avatars, access, and more, in eleven parts, with drone accompaniments.
Three Poems
Claire Donato11.11.15
“It would seem death made me a man / But instead it made me an inversion.” Three new poems by Claire Donato.
Enough, enough, enough, enough enough: Perfume Genius’ Unlearning
Claire Donato08.28.10
Often appearing bare-chested in his homemade music videos and promo photos, 26-year-old Mike Hadreas, who performs under the name Perfume Genius, seems to have become something of an internet gay pin-up icon. At the same time, it’s an appropriate image to represent his vulnerable, emotionally volatile songwriting, which has attracted praise from captivating bay area songwriter Xiu Xiu and British band Los Campesinos! Through his music, poet Claire Donato investigates how repetition — in storytelling, memory and melody — can soothe a traumatic past.
