Deviant traces a trajectory of queer self-discovery from childhood to adulthood, examining love, fear, grief, and the violence that men are capable of in intimate same-sex relationships. Richly engaged with the tangible and experiential, Patrick Grace’s confessional poetry captures profound, sharp emotions, tracking a journey impacted equally by beauty and by brutality. Coming-of-age identity struggles are recalled with wry wit, and dreamlike poems embrace adolescent queer love and connections as a way to cope with the fear and cruelty that can occur in gay relationships. Later poems in the collection recall vivid moments of psychological trauma and stalking and explore the bias of the justice system toward gay men. Collecting memories, dreams, and fears about sexual identity, Deviant makes important contributions to queer coming-of-age and intimate partner violence narratives.

Patrick Grace (he/him) is a queer author who lives on the traditional and unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tseil-Waututh Nations (Vancouver, BC). His poems have been published widely in Canadian literary magazines, including Arc Poetry Magazine, Best Canadian Poetry, Columba, EVENT, The Ex-Puritan, The Fiddlehead, The Malahat Review, Prairie Fire, and more. His work has been a finalist for literary contests with CV2 and PRISM international, and in 2022, his poem “fullblown” won The Malahat Review’s Far Horizons Award. He has published two chapbooks: a blurred wind swirls back for you (2023), and Dastardly (2021), both of which explore aspects of love, fear, and trauma that represent a personal queer identity. Deviant, his first full-length poetry collection, continues to explore these themes. Follow him on IG: @thepoetpatrick.

Patrick Grace's profile page

“Imagine a poem as a traffic light, blinking “stop, go, and wait.” In the hands of Patrick Grace, a phrasemaker of immense skill, these states are combined and recombined to form a highway to the living, breathing world. Deviant is the best kind of poetic debut—written to stand out, and in doing so subverting all expectation.” Jim Johnstone, author of The King of Terrors

“In Deviant, Patrick Grace calls out from the charged and sometimes lonely terrain of queer male intimacy. In brilliant and emotionally devastating work, Grace reminds us how the hunger for connection and the desire for lasting redemption unites us in our longing. Deviant is a collection to savour, introducing a brave new voice in Canadian poetry.” Trevor Corkum, author of The World After Us

“Grace’s poems speak to growing up gay, the passion of love and lust, mental health, and domestic abuse, taking the reader on an emotional journey.… Every line packs a punch. A reader does not need to relate to Grace’s specific experiences to feel breathless by the power of his words.… Grace’s work speaks to the human condition.” Teren Hazzard, The Gateway, October 4, 2024 [Full review at https://thegatewayonline.ca/2024/10/patrick-grace-writes-with-emotion-in-his-poetry-collection-deviant/]

“The glinting and sensually rich poems in Grace’s Deviant are in possession of such a harrowing nostalgia. Tread carefully, but tread nonetheless.” John Elizabeth Stintzi, author of Junebat

“Deviant deftly and with heartbreaking tenderness explores the beauty, yearning, grief, and boundless cycles of discovery involved in queer realization. With a narrative poise that invites the reader in as an intimate witness, Patrick Grace lays down a mosaic of moments that capture the wonders and cruelties of queer being, from heat-warped summer days to coiling truck exhaust and late urban nights. Grace’s poetry is a gift—at once confessional and intimate, yet allowing the queer reader to find themselves time and again within the verse. Deviant is an earnest testament to the way a life unfolds in the face of societal rigidities, told with a voice that carries a mesmerizing composure, yet which surges with the undercurrents of a fierce and luminous poetic grace.” Rhiannon Ng Cheng Hin, author of Fire Cider Rain

"This mix of longing for something lovely and someone beloved with violence seems to be the central tension of the book. The way through is in finding the right words.... It’s as if the tension between beauty and the ugliness of violence forces a new language into being." Kevin Spenst, periodicities: a journal of poetry and poetics, October 2, 2024 [Full post at https://periodicityjournal.blogspot.com/2024/10/kevin-spenst-whatever-heals-you.html]

"You cannot help but to linger in the poignantly shattering moments that Grace unfolds within the poems of Deviant. Intimate and nostalgic, this stellar debut distills the complexities of queer male romance into a glistening portrayal of our human want for connection, and when read will have you 'dusting glitter off the bed for days afterwards.'" David Ly, author of Dream of Me as Water

“Deviant deftly embodies that complex space of queer selfhood and interaction and longing. What a journey, what a joy to move through its beautiful, bruising language, its resonance, and all the ways it makes hope and hurt alike sing.” Dominik Parisien, author of Side Effects May Include Strangers

"Far from being a subject for a case study or criminology class, Grace’s deviant searches for customary destinations: love, freedom, satiation, contentedness.... Savvy about his mistakes and perpetually committed to self-renewal, he does what he can. Along with the rest of us." Brett Josef Grubisic, The British Columbia Review, March 14, 2024 [Full review at https://thebcreview.ca/2024/03/14/2101-grace-grubisic/]

# 2 on Edmonton Poetry Bestsellers list, September 29, 2024

Patrick Grace "casts a searing light into the unseen places where queer desire collides with male aggression." John Barton, Alberta Views magazine, October 2024.