A review by cstefko
Judas Goat by Gabrielle Bates

challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

4.5

I love it when I come across a poem I've read before in a collection by a poet I thought was new to me, but apparently isn't! "Salmon" was my original entry point for Bates, and it's still one of my favorites from this collection. Other favorites included "Impermanent," "Strawberries," "Sabbath," "Eastern Washington Diptych," and "Rosification."

"Conversation with Mary" is staggeringly sharp. Actually, sharpness is a recurring mood in the whole collection. Bates' poems have an edge to them. Also, some visceral animal horror that almost needs a trigger warning but is extremely effective (see: "'Person' Comes from 'Mask'" as well as the introductory poem, "The Dog."

Some favorite lines from the poem "Mothers":

For a long time, the only part of my poems anyone praised
were the endings

I didn't mind.
The way I understood it, if the ending was good,

it cast goodness back over the whole.
I thought we could be saved at the last minute.