Back in 2022, I found out the my family was making plans to demolish my grandmother’s house after a tragic family loss some years prior. At the time, I was finalizing my chapbook, Casting Seeds, so the reality that the house would soon be gone was at the forefront of my mind. Then, I thought to myself, “I really should do something to preserve the house in some way, beyond just a book of poems.”
Fast forward to August 2025, my family granted me access to my grandma’s house one last time. I had the opportunity to spend the entire day creating: vlogging, writing poems, and taking video footage. That’s when I decided to weave together a poetic short film with this content. It wasn’t easy to do. In fact, numerous times, I considered quitting and/or not even releasing it. However, I was ecnouraged to put it out there as a sort of bookend to my first era of creative writing. The title The Cinder Blocks Remember is lifted from a poem in my first book, Carbon Footprint, by the same title. Aptly, the poem is about the vacancy left behind in this house in my grandma’s absence.
I hope you all enjoy it. Thank you for believing in and supporting my work.
xoxo Donny
Watch The Cinder Blocks Remember here and subscribe to my DonnySpeaks poetry channel:
Donny Winter 