Witch

In this accomplished debut, Matthews frames the occult as a source of power and agency for historically marginalized groups, the LGBTQ community foremost among them. “The priests went away nodding/ that an amputated arm was a failure,” he writes in the opening poem. As the book unfolds, witchcraft, ritual, and occult texts become a rich source of alternate histories, which reveal the subjective definitions of the sacred. “Each chakra described with a different number of petals/ pédale; pédé: faggot,” he writes, challenging the power structures dictating definitions of holiness. Though gracefully unified by these thematic concerns, the book takes a capacious approach to form, placing literary tradition in conversation with more experimental gestures and juxtaposing unusual typography alongside tercets. He writes in “The Tranny Ballet”: “I bent/ around/ my sister,// gazing towards an orbit and following. The audience/ were too much to think about, I thought, and turned my attention/ to smaller flashes.” “I am hot in this rage where I have been/Transformed,” he writes in “Crown and Crowning.” These formally dexterous poems offer a dynamic approach to the exploration of identity and mysticism. (Apr.)