Not a Rival, a Translation

Not a Rival, a Translation is a queer devotional poetry chapbook about love shaped by restraint, ritual, labor, and loss.

Set within a monastic world of choir stalls, infirmary rooms, harvest fields, cold corridors, psalms, bells, and shared work, the sequence follows a novice through the early years of fellowship and attachment. What begins as attention becomes longing. What must remain unspoken gathers force through gesture, silence, song, and the practical tenderness of care.

These poems move through desire without easy confession, faith without simple consolation, and grief without ornament. The beloved is not only remembered, but translated into the speaker’s daily obedience: the bread still passed, the psalm still sung, the empty place still empty.

Written in plain, lyrical free verse, Not a Rival, a Translation is for readers of queer love poetry, spiritual poetry, elegy, monastic atmosphere, and intimate poems where the body and the sacred speak under the same breath.