Deviant traces a trajectory of queer self-discovery from childhood to adulthood, examining love, fear, grief, and the violence that men are capable of in intimate same-sex relationships. Richly engaged with the tangible and experiential, Patrick Grace's confessional poetry captures profound, sharp emotions, tracking a journey impacted equally by beauty and by brutality. Coming-of-age identity struggles are recalled with wry wit, and dreamlike poems embrace adolescent queer love and connections as a way to cope with the fear and cruelty that can occur in gay relationships. Later poems in the collection recall vivid moments of psychological trauma and stalking and explore the bias of the justice system toward gay men. Collecting memories, dreams, and fears about sexual identity, Deviant makes important contributions to queer coming-of-age and intimate partner violence narratives.
Industry Reviews
"Deviant deftly and with heartbreaking tenderness explores the beauty, yearning, grief, and boundless cycles of discovery involved in queer realization. With a narrative poise that invites the reader in as an intimate witness, Patrick Grace lays down a mosaic of moments that capture the wonders and cruelties of queer being, from heat-warped summer days to coiling truck exhaust and late urban nights. Grace's poetry is a gift-at once confessional and intimate, yet allowing the queer reader to find themselves time and again within the verse. Deviant is an earnest testament to the way a life unfolds in the face of societal rigidities, told with a voice that carries a mesmerizing composure, yet which surges with the undercurrents of a fierce and luminous poetic grace." Rhiannon Ng Cheng Hin, author of Fire Cider Rain
"Imagine a poem as a traffic light, blinking "stop, go, and wait." In the hands of Patrick Grace, a phrasemaker of immense skill, these states are combined and recombined to form a highway to the living, breathing world. Deviant is the best kind of poetic debut-written to stand out, and in doing so subverting all expectation." Jim Johnstone, author of The King of Terrors
"The glinting and sensually rich poems in Grace's Deviant are in possession of such a harrowing nostalgia. Tread carefully, but tread nonetheless." John Elizabeth Stintzi, author of Junebat
"In Deviant, Patrick Grace calls out from the charged and sometimes lonely terrain of queer male intimacy. In brilliant and emotionally devastating work, Grace reminds us how the hunger for connection and the desire for lasting redemption unites us in our longing. Deviant is a collection to savour, introducing a brave new voice in Canadian poetry." Trevor Corkum, author of The World After Us
"Deviant deftly embodies that complex space of queer selfhood and interaction and longing. What a journey, what a joy to move through its beautiful, bruising language, its resonance, and all the ways it makes hope and hurt alike sing." Dominik Parisien, author of Side Effects May Include Strangers
"Far from being a subject for a case study or criminology class, Grace's deviant searches for customary destinations: love, freedom, satiation, contentedness.... Savvy about his mistakes and perpetually committed to self-renewal, he does what he can. Along with the rest of us." Brett Josef Grubisic, The British Columbia Review, March 14, 2024 [Full review at https://thebcreview.ca/2024/03/14/2101-grace-grubisic/]
