Creep Love

Finalist, Gay Poetry * Lambda Literary Awards *
“These permutations of the human capacity for terror, especially regarding mental illness, are purely compelling. The poems build one on the other, compounding what is an always unsettling movement forward. This is hard, plain content and as readers we are spared little. If this sounds uninviting, that is not so—these poems find a place to stand through it all, and this redemptive footing is the key to survival in so many circumstances. These poems find courage where there is none to be found, and are, in that sense, full of pure human spirit.” -- Alberto Rios, author of A Small Story about the Sky
“It’s a rare poet who can make such powerful poetry from pain, such lyrical beauty out of unthinkable suffering as Walsh has done in his latest collection, Creep Love. Clearly, a master of the confessional poem, Walsh is an engaging poet whose story of a rural past, an abusive stepfather, a Midwestern farm life is at once haunting, terrifying, and beautifully told.”
  -- Nin Andrews, author of Miss August
“This book is a sacrament, the broken body and the blood. The actual broken body of a gay Son whose cries go unheard by Father, Mother, Stepfather, Aunt, Siblings, Cousins. Like cows shut in by electric fences they somehow manage to leap over and break free, these horrific events take place on a farm though they could have happened anywhere. These poems are truths that emerge only after a lifetime of lies, makeup over bruises that can’t fool everyone. This dark Gospel of Betrayal hits hard, leaving marks, sparing no one.”
  -- Timothy Liu, author of Don’t Go Back to Sleep