"Poet. Cultural worker. Storyteller."

Moments as They Are is not just a poetry collection—it's a life unfolding.

 

Told in three parts—childhood, adolescence, and adulthood—it traces the emotional and spiritual journey of a Black, queer speaker coming of age in a world that both loves and confuses him. It begins in wonder and tenderness, moves through rupture, shame, and questioning, and arrives at healing, offering, and quiet joy.

 

The poems are snapshots—some narrative, some meditative, some prayerful—but together they form a narrative of becoming. You'll walk with the speaker through family rooms and street corners, church pews and midnight spirals, barbershops, bedrooms, basements, and gardens. You'll see the evolution not only of identity, but of the voice itself: from the looseness of childhood language to the control of formal verse.

 

This is a book about grief and grace, masculinity and softness, queerness and belonging, silence and survival. But at its heart, it's about choosing to stay—choosing to live—and offering that hard-won joy back to others.

Triston Dabney is a poet, cultural worker, and undergraduate Oprah Winfrey Scholar from Baltimore, Maryland. A Best of the Net nominee and finalist for Button Poetry's Chapbook Contest, he has received scholarships and support from Stockton University, Sphinx Moth Press, and the Hudson Valley Writers Center. His work appears in Obsidian, BreakBread Magazine, The Elevation Review, and other literary spaces committed to Black and queer poetics.

His debut collection, Moments as They Are (Fernwood Press, 2026), traces a journey through boyhood, memory, spirituality, and survival with lyrical precision and radical tenderness.

Triston hopes to pursue an MFA and a career in higher education, where he can continue to nurture emerging voices and build literary spaces rooted in care, community, and cultural truth.