Compost Your Despair

by Hayden Dansky

The poems in Compost Your Despair call on readers to move through their own personal upheaval to stand in solidarity with the rest of the world. Hayden Dansky navigates the fluid journey of self-reflection toward collective liberation, showing that “none of us are free until we are all free.” Dansky shares their personal experience in holding several identities—both oppressed and privileged—and shows how they intersect with one another in the work for calling for a free Palestine, striving to end the violence of racism in the United States, and pursuing queer liberation. These poems demand “we all show up for ourselves, so we can show up for others.”

About the Author

Hayden Dansky is a nonbinary, transgender writer and activist. They have been writing and performing poetry for over thirteen years, and collaborate extensively with local experimental musicians, dancers, other poets and videographers to create performances that encompass multiple disciplines. In addition to Compost Your Despair, they also have two full-length poetry books: I Would Tell You a Secret (2019), a collection of existential poems that explore questions of discovery, self-doubt and what it means to be in a body that is always in transition; and We Are Already Ghosts (2026), which speaks to the real and imaginary ghosts that haunt our day-to-day lives.

Their poems can also be found in anthologies such as Isele Magazine, Beyond Queer Words, Bible Belt Queers, Thought for Food, and Dwell. They are co-director of Boulder Food Rescue, a community-led food access organization working to create a more just and less wasteful food system, by using food as a tool to meet the survival needs of people, interrupting the systems that create that need, and leveraging participatory systems of leadership, community healing, and collective action.

Website: haydendansky.com; Instagram: @haydendansky

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