Tainted by the Same Counterfeit

by Candice Louisa Daquin

Candice Louisa Daquin's collection is a mis-en-scene of beautiful dysfunction, erotic melancholy and an immigrant's dystopia. As a lesbian ageing in-sight, Daquin's wry observations of life are at times, piercing, painful and intensely telling a to human-nature and our endless foibles. Her occupations as writer, psychotherapist and activist, play against a myriad of backdrops from Southern France, Egypt and the wastelands of America. Daquin's co-editing work on two award-winning anthologies lends her the gravitas to produce a fine book of revelations about who we really are and why we're so often tainted by the same counterfeit.

Genres: Poetry

118 pages, Paperback

Published September 23, 2022

About the author

Managing Editor / Lit Fox Books, Austin, TX
Previously Senior Editor / Indie Blu(e) Publishing / 8 years
Associate Editor / Raw Earth Ink
Associate Editor / Queer Ink
Poetry Editor / Writers Resist
Content Editor / Life & Legends Magazine
Poetry Editor / Tint Journal
Poetry Editor / Parcham Literary Journal
Former Poetry Editor / The Pine Cone Review Former Writer-in-Residence / Borderless Journal
Former Editorial Partner / BlackBird Press
Guest-Editor / SETU International Journal

Candice Daquin has edited and written poetry and poetry reviews for the last decade, as well as working in the publishing world and as a Psychotherapist. She has a background in psychotherapy, primarily with trauma survivors. She devotes a good amount of time to writing and editing and is an ardent believer in equity for all.

Daquin is Co-Editor of SMITTEN This Is What Love Looks Like, an award-winning lesbian poetry anthology and co-editor of THE KALI PROJECT, an award-winning collection of feminist Indian writers and Co-Editor of We Will Not Be Silenced, an anthology of poets and writers and artists responding to the #metoo movement. The anthology reached #1 positions on Amazon best-seller lists for months. Daquin also Co-Edited As The World Burns (an anthology on #metoo and #Trump and #Covid-19), and has edited many authors works as well as reviewing or writing forewords.

Daquin's most recent collection of poetry Tainted by the Same Counterfeit came out in 2022. Her debut novel The Cruelty published November 25th, 2025. FlowerSong Press.

As a queer immigrant woman, Daquin's support of others is how she gets her joy.

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Reviews

[Tara Caribou · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book in paperback. This is an unsolicited review.

To say Candice Daquin’s poetry is deeply moving is barely scratching the surface to actually reading it. Her words get deep inside the marrow, burrowing in and finding ways to be remembered days down the line. This latest collection of poetry from her is the perfect example of this. I earmarked so many pieces in the book, I don’t have room in this review to share them all.

A few of my favorites were:
“The memory of clothes” which begins ‘Somewhere in a filing room with corrugated cardboard and dried blood, her skirt of 2006 is folded by a uniformed man who isn’t used to folding women’s clothes.’
“The Opal” with ‘how did you come to be? A vowel, a constellation, a rhyme in my mind…’
“We, made of paper” with lines like ‘we made of fog… we made of wrung hands… we made of incomplete stitch…’
“Not of man, not of woman” begins ‘The earth cracked open one ordinary Thursday Thursday’s child walked out she has long to go’ and continues ‘setting out on foot zola budd if she swam oceans in seal fat and ate stones to give her some brevity… once, crossing river she saw herself reflected her skin green like deep forest with shallow scoop, she spoke to silver fish telling them of her beginning in clay too hard for shape…’ oh man I loved that piece
And not to mention a handful of short pieces such as “Loathe” and “Relinquished habits”.

Other pieces which I can’t bear to share a simple line or two because they were so powerful were “Amulet”, “Frenzy”, and “Late bloom”.

I took my time and absorbed each poem one by one, savoring them, not crowding them in my mind. What a privilege to be able to read her words! My heart is tender and pulled. She knows just how to write the words between the lines to evoke such emotion.

This book receives 4.5/5 stars from me. Beautiful cover and an excellent length. The poetry itself isn’t lacking. The only dings from me are some spelling errors and some awkward formatting, (which I didn’t expect I’d see from a press like this, as I was under the impression they publish a LOT of authors). It was a hard pill to swallow because such immense and gorgeous poetry deserves respect and a gorgeous printing. To be honest I don’t feel the publisher gave Daquin the beautiful book she deserves. Sadly, that 1/2-star is really from the publisher not doing a great job and not due to the writer.

Regardless, I highly highly recommend this collection of poetry to those who love real poetry and poems to make you swoon and sigh and clutch your heart.

[Linda · Rating 5 out of 5]

Candice Louisa Daquin has presented the world with another compilation of heart piercing original poetry. Daquin doesn’t settle until she finds the precise words to ignite imagination and rhythms to quicken the senses. Much of her work plumbs what it means to be a woman, how it feels to be in love, to be in lust, to be tossed aside, to be broken into and broken apart. In “Common denominator” the sum of passion is laid open in unexpected union. In “Gravity” she explores the inexorable creep of years. Throughout her work there is an often sweet, sometimes not, melancholy—an acknowledgement of the suffering that is life. For this former letter carrier, the lines in “Mailed in pieces” sailed right off the page and into my heart:
. . . when letters were in vogue
I was queen of paper and felt
my post box swelled with suitors who had
learned the kerning of words
my standards, though I try not to let it show
far higher than, pretty paper and violet pen . . .

Daquin’s poetry takes on a rainbow of themes besides love and loss. Fear plays a role. Racism lurks along with class, or would that be lack of class? Secrets poison. There is hope along with belonging, and not. Human imperfections abound. Her work is guaranteed to startle, intrigue, perplex, and reward the careful reader.

[Rebecca Evans · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tainted by the Same Counterfeit is penned with fire and heart. Candice Louisa Daquin’s collection crosses new boundaries and borders, intersecting language, ethnicity, equality, survival. “There are sinews of unsaid moments / trailing sweat stains / across best intentions / and girls who didn’t unknot their tongues.” Daquin’s approach behaves as both a witness and a speaker throughout this piercing narration, exploring what it means to overcome, and more importantly, what it means to face our fragility.

[Ashley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Daquin is a powerful poet, in every collection she writes, but this book may be her most powerful yet. It’s painfully beautiful, a collection of pieces that weave through the human tapestry of emotion with such finesse that I was often left gasping. Her observations are insightful, heartbreaking at times, but never without feeling. She tells her own story in a masterpiece of verse, poetry and prose that holds onto the soul of the reader long after the book is finished.

[Cassa Bassa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Raw, masterful with words and intimate. A must-read if you are a poetry lover and deep thinker.