Judas Goat

A Vulture Most Anticipated Book of Winter

A Chicago Review of Books , The Millions, Debutiful, and Write or Die Magazine Best Book of January

An Autostraddle Most Anticipated Queer and Feminist Book of 2023

"Stellar. . . . with great humanity, grace, and precision." Nicole Sealey, author of Ordinary Beast

Gabrielle Bates's electric debut collection Judas Goat plumbs the depths of intimate relationships. The book's eponymous animal is used to lead sheep to slaughter while its own life is spared, and its harrowing existence echoes through this spellbinding collection of forty poems, which wrestle with betrayal and forced obedience, violence and young womanhood, and the "forbidden felt language" of sexual and sacred love. These poems conjure encounters with figures from scriptures, domesticated animals eyeing the wild, and mothering as a shapeshifting,...