Gorgeous Freak

A book of poetry meant to conjure the future while nourishing the present, Julie Poole’s second collection is inspired by movement within the Texan cityscape.

Written from 2016-2017 during a taut political moment, Gorgeous Freak follows Poole’s decision to start keeping a poetry journal while commuting by foot around Austin. Her intent, folded carefully in these slender and jagged poems, is to call out to a future soulmate, pulling them back into her present: hot, humid Austin, Texas, in the first year of the Trump presidency, traversed by foot miles a day, watching the seasons change through surrounding urban flora and fauna.

Julie Poole was born in Seattle, Washington, and raised in the Pacific Northwest. She received a BA from Columbia University and an MFA in poetry from The New Writers Project at The University of Texas at Austin. She is currently a profession track journalism student at UT’s School of Journalism and Media. Her first book of poems, Bright Specimen, was inspired by the Billie L. Turner Plant Resources Center at UT and was published in June 2021. She has received fellowship support from the James A. Michener Center, the Helene Wurlitzer Foundation, The Corsicana Artist and Writer Residency, and Yaddo. In 2017, she was a finalist for the Keene Prize for Literature. Her poems and essays have appeared Denver Quarterly, Poet Lore, Cold Mountain Review, Porter House Review, HuffPost, and elsewhere. Her arts and culture writing has appeared in Split Lip Magazine, Publishers Weekly, The Texas Observer, Texas Monthly, Scalawag, Yes! Magazine, and Bon Appétit. She lives in Austin, Texas.