Daniella Toosie-Watson

Biography

Daniella Toosie-Watson is a Puerto Rican/Iranian/Russian poet, visual artist and educator from New York. She has received fellowships from the Callaloo Creative Writing Workshop and the InsideOut Detroit Literary Arts Project. Her poetry has appeared in Callaloo. Daniella is an MFA candidate at the University of Michigan’s Helen Zell Writers’ Program.  

See Work

POETRY / Spring 2019

Dad Says Being Gay Is Like Kissing Your Mother, then Prays

By Daniella Toosie-Watson

Mount Vernon, NY, summer 2001

Sitting on the concrete steps in the back of my grandma’s house, 
our dad shows us how to burn paper 
with a magnifying glass. Says people kill ants this way, 
how cruel it is. It was true: the magnifying glass...

POETRY / Spring 2019

Pediophobia

By Daniella Toosie-Watson

10.

Dad, you look like a doll
I wouldn’t want to play with, boxed
in your casket. The mortician
tried to paint you pretty.
I wanted to be pretty, too, but mom says
makeup is inappropriate for funerals.

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