2022 LAMBDA LITERARY AWARDS FINALIST!
Harnessing street
protest as a poetic formation, Villainy exhibits the desires
that bring queers into public space.
Andrea Abi-Karam
answers the call to action for poetry itself to become the radical
accomplice it was destined to be in their second book, Villainy.
In order to live through the grief of the Ghostship Fire & the
Muslim Ban, Villainy foments political action in public
spaces, and indexes the various emotional states, such as rage,
revelry, fear, grief, and desire to which queers must tend during
protest. In scenes loaded with glitter, broken glass, and cum,
Abi-Karam insists that in order to shatter the rising influence of
new fascism we must embrace the collective work of antifascists,
street medics, and queer exhibitionists and that the safety that we
risk is reckless and necessary. Disruptive and demanding, these punk
poems embody direct action and invite the audience into the
desire-filled slippage between public sex and demonstration. At
heart, Villainy aims to destroy all levels of hierarchy to
establish a participatory, temporary autonomous zone in which the
targeted other can thrive.