About this item
Poetry. LGBTQIA Studies. OUR LADY OF PERPETUAL DEGENERACY asserts the possibilities for queer/trans sexualities and genders in Catholic saints. These speakers navigate a world of mingling divine and mundane as saints leave their lives in heaven behind and haunt an earthly narrator. Saints act here as figures between human and supernatural--bringing into question other binaries and structures like gender, memory, and family. The collection searches for a new kind of communion of saints and a new, often erotic and sometimes tender, kind of prayer."Robin Gow's first full-length collection is full of verve, sass, mystery, and wonder. In OUR LADY OF PERPETUAL DEGENERACY, Gow has made a family of queer angels and reclaimed saints in poems that are as finely crafted as they are magical and sincere.
About the Author
Gow grew up in rural Pennsylvania and lives in Allentown Pennsylvania with their two pugs, Eddie and Gertie and their queer family. He works at Bradbury-Sullivan LGBT Community Center coordinating supportive services for the local LGBTQIA community. Awarded the Jerry Cain and Scott James Creative Writing Fellow, Gow earned their MFA in Creative Writing from Adelphi University where they also taught writing courses as an adjunct professor. Gow runs the trans & queer reading series Gender Reveal Party and co-edits the new magazine The Comments Section. Robin is the author of the chapbook Honeysuckle by Finishing Line Press and the collection Our Lady of Perpetual Degeneracy by Tolsun Books. Their first YA novel in verse, A Million Quiet Revolutions, is forthcoming March 2022 with FSG Books for Young readers and their first essay collection, Blue Blood, is forthcoming with Nasiona Publishing House. They is a managing editor The Nasiona and the assistant editor at large at Doubleback Books. They served for four years as the production editor of the Lantern literary magazine and are Social Media Coordinator for Oyster River Pages. They has also worked to help produce several zines and taught creative writing workshops in a variety of community spaces, including online forms. They are an out and proud autistic bisexual genderqueer man passionate about LGBTQIAA issues.
