Gospel Drunk follows a speaker’s journey to find clarity and identity as he contemplates his Catholic upbringing and struggles with loneliness and alcohol addiction. Sharp, intoxicating imagery and a minimalist aesthetic combine in these poems to explore some of our darkest and strongest belief systems, dismantling them with wit and wisdom. Poignant boyhood memories of hockey coaches as “dragons in suits” collide with critiques of “the broken bicycle of recovery.” A child’s fingers interlace to form a gun during mass and Hulk attends an AA meeting. Boldly honest, Gospel Drunk is for all who seek humanity in a world where the personal and the political are equally complicated.

He drops a match on his wound to set fire to his blood. At a certain temperature even the Devil cools. -from “Drowning Man Sonnets”

Aidan Chafe is the author of Short Histories of Light, which was nominated for the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award. He has also published two chapbooks, Right Hand Hymns and Sharpest Tooth. His poems and reviews have appeared in journals including Arc, CV2, PRISM international, EVENT, and Vallum. He lives on the ancestral unceded homelands of the Coast Salish peoples (Burnaby, BC).

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# 10 on Edmonton Poetry Bestsellers list, October 10, 2021