USEREVIEW 112 (Capsule): Judas Goat
Gabrielle Bates
Judas Goat (Tin House, 2023)
ISBN 978-1-95353-464-4 | 104 pp | $16.95 USD | BUY Here
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Gabrielle Bates’ debut collection of poems, Judas Goat, surprises and shocks with its candor and specificity about being a young woman in the beckoning Deep South. Violence permeates this collection, as does religion — images of Judas, his organs spilling out of his body, make appearances, as do the Virgin Mary and other eclectic figures. They are woven through with more personal figures: lovers, husbands, mothers, fathers. Bates manages to weave the confessional with the holy, making everyday occurrences like dinner with one’s father into moments wrought out of scripture. Goats, the eponymous animal, are like a familiar to Bates — they suckle and give life, but also represent something more sinister, their slit pupils designating them as a creature of evildoing as well as motherhood.
At times, the collection feels scattered — Bates has taken on an immense, emotional project, and the threads don’t always cohere, but her powerful voice makes up for the occasional misstep. This debut is a strong one, and Bates is a dynamo who should be watched for what she does next.
Recommended excerpt:
The book is written with fervor and precision, the poems ask difficult questions and answer them in the same breath, as in ‘Eastern Washington Diptych’ (p. 37): “Without violence, how do I understand my life as meaningful? / As if the only tool I owned for finding truth were a knife.”
