COMING SOON
PURIFICATION IN QUEENS
COMING MAY 2024 // FERNWOOD PRESS
A thrilling, spiritual audit of a woman raised within a hyper-legalistic Christian culture, Purification in Queens embodies Kristalyn Gill’s mission to reclaim the evangelical lexicon and introduce this vocabulary back into present-day vernacular. The collection illuminates and empathizes with society’s communal strain to deconstruct Western femininity and religious conviction. Across the pages, Gill contends with doubt, the realities of death, and the value of transparency, leaving readers with more questions than musings.
Brazen, sincere, and refreshing, Purification in Queens welcomes the fracturing of faith as an invitation to reconstruct and develop a hope-filled, tenacious pursuit of a God who Sees. At times morbidly curious and strikingly comedic, Gill lays out her daring ambition to challenge the Christian Church’s ecclesiastical hierarchy and its collective fall from grace.
WHY YOU DON’T WANT TO MISS THIS BOOK:
“Kristalyn Gill's Purification in Queens successfully grapples with the intricacies of religiosity and girlhood. It is a celebration of reclaiming femininity and faith. It is a transparent and honest manifesto of the complexities of living in a body. It is an ongoing game of Rock, Paper, Scissors when it comes to processing a nonlinear relationship with God. Gill's imagery throughout is so striking, you won't be able to put her book down.” - Maya Williams (Poet Laureate 2021 – 2024 of Portland, Maine)
poetry COLLECTIONS
THE SHAPE OF YOU
Published June 2022
The Shape of You confronts society's obsession with identity and spills the sense of self into acknowledgement of the influence of community on personal perception. The entire work is a play on the anaphora "the shape of you," using repetition as both a thousand small deaths as well as the gateway to understanding.
Cover art by Nathanael Myers.
THE Breakup Club
Published March 2019
This work explores the idea of breakups serving as catalysts for growth and reflection, whether they are romantic endings, a dream never realized, a family feud, or breaking away from the labels thrust upon one's personal identity. These words encourage the notion that through our constant mishaps, which lead us to fall apart again and again, we can create and share empathy between individuals and communities.
She was familiar with wars
Published June 2017
This book explores the power of interaction and self-reflection. The text skims the idea that narratives always have at least two perspectives, that they form community with a myriad of emotions, and that together there is a potentiality for vulnerability.
published FEATURED poems
Literary forrest magazine
November Issue, 2020
junk drawer magazine
Winter Issue, 2020
Dead dads zinE
Volume II, 2020. Published online and select stores in NYC, London, and Sydney.