Apz Books
All the Gay Saintsby Kayleb Rae CandrilliSaturnalia Books, 2020Paperback, 100 pages
It is clear that if I communicate all the ways I hurtI will lose my usefulness.
So begins the second poem of Kayleb Rae Candrilli’s much-anticipated second book of poetry, All the Gay Saints. This collection—which won the Saturnalia Books Poetry Prize, selected by Natalie Diaz—focuses on the poet’s joy and faith in their future, in spite of the condition of the world today. Candrilli—who uses the pronouns they, them, and their—acknowledges the tenuous state of the world and country in this second poem, aptly named “On Wanting Top Surgery in the Fascist Regime.” The poet also acknowledges some readers’ problematic expectations: that queer and transgender people must only write about their pain and suffering. Trans poet Cameron Awkward-Rich also…
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The American Poetry Review (Digital) - 1 Issue, May/June 2020