Overview

Perverts traverses the psychic landscapes of Kay Gabriel and her community of friends, writers and organizers, piecing together a collective dream that both mirrors and transforms waking life. Against the backdrop of the anti-trans panic, Perverts explores desire as a political problem. It asks two questions at the same time: whose desire is understood as dangerously excessive? And-a classic organizer's question-how do we turn what we have into what we need to get what we want? Synthesizing her own dreams with those of her friends, Kay Gabriel's Perverts is an exercise in turning private experience into shared consciousness and illicit desire into common cause..

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9781643622941

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Reviews

""Using the dreams of strangers and friends . . . Kay Gabriel’s epic poem is far from phantasmic. It’s full of specifics about protest, desire, and being trans in our political moment."" —Emma Alpern, New York Magazine ""[Gabriel] beat everyone to the finish line in the smartest, most roundabout way."" —Hari Nef, Interview ""Maximally pleasurable . . . [Gabriel] is a poet whose vision for a better life rejects the deranged logic of private property, moral panic, and the hell of autonomy."" —Shiv Kotecha, BOMB “Kay Gabriel has written an anti-epic for our current moment, bringing contemporary queer community into being with lyric verve amid and in resistance to our ongoing catastrophe.” —John Keene “Perverts is a gorgeous multicolored quilt of the subconscious of others, a pleasure, a riot . . . a gift.” —Hannah Black ""One of poetry’s great dreamers puts nighttime’s revelations into social relation."" —Rainer Diana Hamilton, Frieze ""Gabriel's perverts yearn for sex, sex change, and socialist revolution in equal measure. It is a plenary session on acid . . . Gabriel's tear encompasses decades of hoped-for social and political change."" —Ben Miller, The Baffler ""Dolls, pills, and intrigue. Delicious"" —Candystore, The Whitney Review ""In Gabriel's hands, history is still up for grabs."" —Morgan Bassichis ""A highly social, intertextual theory of the dream, set in an epic form that covers pop culture, futurity, poetics, and sex . . . Throughout Perverts, Gabriel is the coolest person at the party. Her voice feels effortlessly perspicacious, and she has the conviction of a literary star."" —Eliot Duncan, Kismet Magazine

""Using the dreams of strangers and friends . . . Kay Gabriel’s epic poem is far from phantasmic. It’s full of specifics about protest, desire, and being trans in our political moment."" —Emma Alpern, New York Magazine ""[Gabriel] beat everyone to the finish line in the smartest, most roundabout way."" —Hari Nef, Interview ""Maximally pleasurable . . . [Gabriel] is a poet whose vision for a better life rejects the deranged logic of private property, moral panic, and the hell of autonomy."" —Shiv Kotecha, BOMB “Kay Gabriel has written an anti-epic for our current moment, bringing contemporary queer community into being with lyric verve amid and in resistance to our ongoing catastrophe.” —John Keene “Perverts is a gorgeous multicolored quilt of the subconscious of others, a pleasure, a riot . . . a gift.” —Hannah Black ""One of poetry’s great dreamers puts nighttime’s revelations into social relation."" —Rainer Diana Hamilton, Frieze “Kay Gabriel collected the dreams of friends and strangers to weave an epic poem about desires subconscious and realized amidst anti-trans panic. Bursting with liberation, and love, it is an urgent and truly satisfying read.” —Language Arts ""In Gabriel's hands, history is still up for grabs."" —Morgan Bassichis ""A highly social, intertextual theory of the dream, set in an epic form that covers pop culture, futurity, poetics, and sex . . . Throughout Perverts, Gabriel is the coolest person at the party. Her voice feels effortlessly perspicacious, and she has the conviction of a literary star."" —Eliot Duncan, Kismet Magazine ""Whip-smart . . . This collection is not only gender non-conforming but also genre non-conforming. Elements of poetry practice are mixed with oral history, non-fiction and prose. Kay Gabriel’s work is boundary-pushing."" —Natasha Dennerstein, Bay Area Reporter ""There is a propulsion to Gabriel’s lyric, one that interweaves an array of threads to hold together a coherent, singular movement forward, across conversation, thought and community."" —rob mclennan

""[Gabriel] imagines desire as a constant, not a crisis, but it is a constant that is flexible and porous, with a poetics to match."" --New York Review of Books ""Gabriel is among those freeing trans writing from the trap of identity."" --McKenzie Wark

""Using the dreams of strangers and friends . . . Kay Gabriel’s epic poem is far from phantasmic. It’s full of specifics about protest, desire, and being trans in our political moment."" —Emma Alpern, New York Magazine ""[Gabriel] beat everyone to the finish line in the smartest, most roundabout way."" —Hari Nef, Interview ""Maximally pleasurable . . . [Gabriel] is a poet whose vision for a better life rejects the deranged logic of private property, moral panic, and the hell of autonomy."" —Shiv Kotecha, BOMB “Kay Gabriel has written an anti-epic for our current moment, bringing contemporary queer community into being with lyric verve amid and in resistance to our ongoing catastrophe.” —John Keene “Perverts is a gorgeous multicolored quilt of the subconscious of others, a pleasure, a riot . . . a gift.” —Hannah Black ""One of poetry’s great dreamers puts nighttime’s revelations into social relation."" —Rainer Diana Hamilton, Frieze ""Gabriel's perverts yearn for sex, sex change, and socialist revolution in equal measure. It is a plenary session on acid . . . Gabriel's tear encompasses decades of hoped-for social and political change."" —Ben Miller, The Baffler “Kay Gabriel collected the dreams of friends and strangers to weave an epic poem about desires subconscious and realized amidst anti-trans panic. Bursting with liberation, and love, it is an urgent and truly satisfying read.” —Language Arts ""In Gabriel's hands, history is still up for grabs."" —Morgan Bassichis ""A highly social, intertextual theory of the dream, set in an epic form that covers pop culture, futurity, poetics, and sex . . . Throughout Perverts, Gabriel is the coolest person at the party. Her voice feels effortlessly perspicacious, and she has the conviction of a literary star."" —Eliot Duncan, Kismet Magazine ""Whip-smart . . . This collection is not only gender non-conforming but also genre non-conforming. Elements of poetry practice are mixed with oral history, non-fiction and prose. Kay Gabriel’s work is boundary-pushing."" —Natasha Dennerstein, Bay Area Reporter ""There is a propulsion to Gabriel’s lyric, one that interweaves an array of threads to hold together a coherent, singular movement forward, across conversation, thought and community."" —rob mclennan

Author Information

Kay Gabriel is a writer and organizer. She's the author of Perverts (2025), Kissing Other People or the House of Fame (2023), and A Queen in Bucks County (2022), all from Nightboat. She's the Editorial Director at the Poetry Project and lives in New York City.

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