Lavish Cruelty, Katie Jean Shinkle
December, 2028
85 pages
In dialogue with José Esteban Muñoz's queer futurity, Lavish Cruelty embarks on a Persephone-esque journey through the underworlds of addiction, queer desire, and the re-envisioning of what the horizon of a future can hold. In three movements—Descent, Bottom, and Ascent—he poems ask: What would absolution look like in the moment of release? How does one get free when abstinence is the only choice and abolition ceases to exist? If one cannot repair themselves, how can they help anyone else?
Katie Jean Shinkle’s work includes Dear John: A Retrospective (Antiphony: a journal & press, forthcoming), The Only Way Out is Through (YesYes Books, 2026), and Tannery Bay (coauthored with Steven Dunn, FC2/University of Alabama Press, 2024). She teaches creative writing at Sam Houston State University where she is the Director of the MFA in Creative Writing, Editing, and Publishing and serves as Board President of Beneath the Wild Sky Foundation. She splits her time between East Texas and New Orleans.