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Gay Girl Prayers
A collection of poetry reclaiming Catholic prayers and biblical passages to empower girls, women, and members of the LGBTQIA+ community.
The extreme level of sass in Emily Austin’s Gay Girl Prayers does not mean that this collection is irreverent. On the contrary, in rewriting Bible verses to affirm and uplift queer, feminist, and trans realities, Austin invites readers into a giddy celebration of difference and a tender appreciation for the lives and perspectives of “strange women.”
Packed with zingy one liners, sexual innuendo, self-respect, U-Hauling, and painfully earnest declarations of love, this is gayness at its best, harnessed to a higher purpose and ready to fight the powers that be.
The extreme level of sass in Emily Austin’s Gay Girl Prayers does not mean that this collection is irreverent. On the contrary, in rewriting Bible verses to affirm and uplift queer, feminist, and trans realities, Austin invites readers into a giddy celebration of difference and a tender appreciation for the lives and perspectives of “strange women.”
Packed with zingy one liners, sexual innuendo, self-respect, U-Hauling, and painfully earnest declarations of love, this is gayness at its best, harnessed to a higher purpose and ready to fight the powers that be.
56 pages, Kindle Edition
Published March 1, 2024
53 people are currently reading
6988 people want to read
About the author
Emily R. Austin
8 books3,930 followersEmily Austin is the author of EVERYONE IN THIS ROOM WILL SOMEDAY BE DEAD, INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT SPACE, GAY GIRL PRAYERS, WE COULD BE RATS, and IS THIS A CRY FOR HELP. She currently resides in Ottawa/the territory of the Anishinaabe Algonquin Nation.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 502 reviews
March 15, 2024
ethel cain-coded but like, slightly happier.
December 29, 2024
I'm about to make some of y'all very mad at me. Let me disclaim this review by saying I actually love Emily Austin! Everyone In This Room Will Someday Be Dead is genuinely one of my top 5 favorite books ever. Plus I love poetry and gay people so I was completely prepared (and hoping) to love this. Which makes it all the more shitty that I really hated it.
This book is very reminiscent of the cash-grab low-effort poetry books that become memes online a la Gabbie Hanna and Rupi Kaur. Its sooo unfortunate and so upsetting because, as I said, I adore her and know that she is capable of making observations that are far more interesting and nuanced, all being expressed in ways that are at least the tiniest bit subtle. A lot of these are just tweets dude, and not even funny or insightful ones. I thought this was all very superficial and obvious, lacking in any sort of complexity both in language and in content. Every poem said the same thing rephrased, nothing was explored in any depth, nor was there any attempt at depth in the first place! SO on the nose, SO literal, SO insubstantial, SO juvenile. Emily girl what happened. A lot of it reads like excerpts from her books with arbitrary line breaks which I think does not translate well into poetry at all.
It's giving "we are the daughters of the witches they couldn’t burn.” Like very corny, kinda shallow, entry-level feminism with uninteresting and stale commentary.
My next criticisms are personal preferences (that I happen to feel strongly about). I think the constant contemporary references to popular culture (drag queen story-hour, oat milk, Tinder) are misplaced within poetry. Like I’m aware that poetry can be anything but for me I absolutely hate it. Firstly, poetry has such an incredible power to transcend literal millenia. One reads Sappho and is convinced it was written yesterday. These sorts of references will age like milk, and though I don't suppose Emily wants or expects her poems to be read two thousand years from now, I still think "timelessness" is a really valuable and interesting facet of the genre. Secondly, there is something valuable in considering the melody/rhythm of your poems and when you insert something as jarring as a the name of a contemporary dating app when the poem stylistically resembles a bible verse, the rhythm is greatly disrupted and the melody is compromised; thus, the reader is no longer immersed and you're not using the medium to its full potential. Like I said before, what is the point of turning sentences that belong in a novel into poetry? The medium is not conducive to this kind of writing. I obviously understand she was trying to blend the bible verse thing with contemporary references, but they worked in awkward opposition in my opinion. Thirdly, the pop culture references can read as a desperate ploy to relate to the reader through recognizable buzz words rather than shared emotions/experiences: true identification. It’s also just so terribly boring to read and makes it seem like this poem was written in maybe 25 seconds. Like you wrote this whole book in an afternoon. Like you couldn’t have come up with something more abstract/linguistically melodic/conceptually compelling than “Tinder.”
That being said, none of this applies to “Song of Shulamit,” which had compelling and descriptive imagery, a narrative, melodic and lyrical prose, motivated line breaks, and was a celebration of love rather than an expression of insubstantial and repetitive indignation and snark (both of those things are fine, but I had an issue with the execution).
I promise I am not writing this to be a hater. I wanted and expected to like it and ended up disappointed. I will still read whatever Austin writes next, and am sure this collection will resonate with many.
This book is very reminiscent of the cash-grab low-effort poetry books that become memes online a la Gabbie Hanna and Rupi Kaur. Its sooo unfortunate and so upsetting because, as I said, I adore her and know that she is capable of making observations that are far more interesting and nuanced, all being expressed in ways that are at least the tiniest bit subtle. A lot of these are just tweets dude, and not even funny or insightful ones. I thought this was all very superficial and obvious, lacking in any sort of complexity both in language and in content. Every poem said the same thing rephrased, nothing was explored in any depth, nor was there any attempt at depth in the first place! SO on the nose, SO literal, SO insubstantial, SO juvenile. Emily girl what happened. A lot of it reads like excerpts from her books with arbitrary line breaks which I think does not translate well into poetry at all.
It's giving "we are the daughters of the witches they couldn’t burn.” Like very corny, kinda shallow, entry-level feminism with uninteresting and stale commentary.
My next criticisms are personal preferences (that I happen to feel strongly about). I think the constant contemporary references to popular culture (drag queen story-hour, oat milk, Tinder) are misplaced within poetry. Like I’m aware that poetry can be anything but for me I absolutely hate it. Firstly, poetry has such an incredible power to transcend literal millenia. One reads Sappho and is convinced it was written yesterday. These sorts of references will age like milk, and though I don't suppose Emily wants or expects her poems to be read two thousand years from now, I still think "timelessness" is a really valuable and interesting facet of the genre. Secondly, there is something valuable in considering the melody/rhythm of your poems and when you insert something as jarring as a the name of a contemporary dating app when the poem stylistically resembles a bible verse, the rhythm is greatly disrupted and the melody is compromised; thus, the reader is no longer immersed and you're not using the medium to its full potential. Like I said before, what is the point of turning sentences that belong in a novel into poetry? The medium is not conducive to this kind of writing. I obviously understand she was trying to blend the bible verse thing with contemporary references, but they worked in awkward opposition in my opinion. Thirdly, the pop culture references can read as a desperate ploy to relate to the reader through recognizable buzz words rather than shared emotions/experiences: true identification. It’s also just so terribly boring to read and makes it seem like this poem was written in maybe 25 seconds. Like you wrote this whole book in an afternoon. Like you couldn’t have come up with something more abstract/linguistically melodic/conceptually compelling than “Tinder.”
That being said, none of this applies to “Song of Shulamit,” which had compelling and descriptive imagery, a narrative, melodic and lyrical prose, motivated line breaks, and was a celebration of love rather than an expression of insubstantial and repetitive indignation and snark (both of those things are fine, but I had an issue with the execution).
I promise I am not writing this to be a hater. I wanted and expected to like it and ended up disappointed. I will still read whatever Austin writes next, and am sure this collection will resonate with many.
January 3, 2025
OK, it is NOT fair that Emily Austin is so great at all forms of writing. Like, I read one of her novels and loved it, and then this collection of poetry blew my mind. Each poem is a subversive, queer take on one or more Bible verses, hymns or pieces of Catholic liturgy. You probably don’t need much of a background in the Bible to enjoy this collection, but my experience reading this was definitely enhanced by having an existing knowledge of Scripture. For that reason, I think ex-Christians and my fellow (very) progressive Christians will get the most out of this. This is queer poetry in conversation with Catholicism, and the compelling concept is executed flawlessly.
April 23, 2024
Gay Girl Prayers engages with catholicism on a very shallow, almost childish level.
Many of the poems in this book are reworked Bible verses, but they're not altered in a way that feels creative. I don't think 'queering' a religious text is enough to make your writing subversive. There is simply no interesting experimentation with language, form, or style. The writing felt reminiscent of Orion Carloto and Gabbie Hanna's poetry.
In a poem called Matthew 25:3, Austin writes "Heaven is ten girls who take their lamps to each other's bed chambers to consider polyamory and sperm donors".
Then there's "The Virgin Jeff":
"Hail Jeff,
blessed are thou among men
and blessed is the fruit of thy seed, Judy
pray for us"
That's it, that's the whole poem. The lack of creativity is astounding.
Many of the poems in this book are reworked Bible verses, but they're not altered in a way that feels creative. I don't think 'queering' a religious text is enough to make your writing subversive. There is simply no interesting experimentation with language, form, or style. The writing felt reminiscent of Orion Carloto and Gabbie Hanna's poetry.
In a poem called Matthew 25:3, Austin writes "Heaven is ten girls who take their lamps to each other's bed chambers to consider polyamory and sperm donors".
Then there's "The Virgin Jeff":
"Hail Jeff,
blessed are thou among men
and blessed is the fruit of thy seed, Judy
pray for us"
That's it, that's the whole poem. The lack of creativity is astounding.
Read
September 27, 2023a few poems hit me SO hard because of how earnest and haunting they are but they're immediately followed by a poem that has a more snarky tone. i don't love those huge fluctuations in a poetry collection; i would rather sit in my feelings, regardless of what that feeling actually is. i think my reading experience would have been better had i read a poem or two a day instead of reading the entire collection in essentially one sitting.
i would still highly recommend for anyone - particularly those who are queer or were raised catholic - because austin does a wonderful job at giving a sense of belonging in an area where there's often exclusion.
i received an arc copy from brick books and edelweiss in exchange for an honest review - thank you!
i would still highly recommend for anyone - particularly those who are queer or were raised catholic - because austin does a wonderful job at giving a sense of belonging in an area where there's often exclusion.
i received an arc copy from brick books and edelweiss in exchange for an honest review - thank you!
March 23, 2024
so if you don't know yet, one of my favorite combo in media - whether it be tv, music, art, literature - is the marriage of religion and sex/love, i love it even more if it's queer sex/love. so already out the gates, i was going to LOVE these poems and i did love them!!!
i was sitting in the corner of the bookstore and i was reading and taking pictures of my favorite passages, gawking in awe and giggling to myself like a little girl!! like girls, i really loved this collection. it was an unabashed celebration of queerness in gender and in sexuality, and of love. i felt beloved for fuck's sake! it was witty, sassy like the re-appropriation of the city of sodom (unironically a fav unfortunately)- like the contemporary rebel reveling in its use of the archaic biblical vocabulary to praise queer beauty and love, an old 'foe' of the church and christianity - it was laugh out loud funny at times paired with some of the most gorgeous and aching declarations of queer, specifically wlw love. i had so much fun, pride and almost had butterflies at times. but reading "words of consecration" and "the song of shulamit" : (here's a little piece, not in its entirety)
"i have compared her, my love,
to the compagny of unicorns in sappho's garden
to the grotto cool of the nymphs.
a bundle of myrrh is my beloved unto me.
shhe shall lie all night betwixt my breats,
bruised the red blood of roses.
my beloved is unto me
as a cluster of green carnations
in the gardens at mytilene.
o my spouse, she who cometh from the wilderness.
love prevails because it is a life-giving as water,
more perilous than death; it never waits.
let my beloved into my garden.
let her eat pleasant fruits,
wear crowns of roses and crocuses.
i found her whom my soul loveth.
i held her and would not let her go.
my beloved is mine and i am hers."
OH GODDD I WAS ON THE FLOOR ALREADY BUT I FELL !!! I COLLAPSED !! AND I CAN'T GET UP !! if i'm ever loved like that poem loved her strange women, i really might die. the way austin wrote about women is just... i'm so jelaous, i need someone to talk about me like she did even though i might die, i would be feverish!! but also literally kill me if i am not loved like this !!
no but this collection of poems was so needed for me, like it's a reassuring, loving, affirmative feminist collection, i felt welcome and treasured, like oh wow. absolute love.
i was sitting in the corner of the bookstore and i was reading and taking pictures of my favorite passages, gawking in awe and giggling to myself like a little girl!! like girls, i really loved this collection. it was an unabashed celebration of queerness in gender and in sexuality, and of love. i felt beloved for fuck's sake! it was witty, sassy like the re-appropriation of the city of sodom (unironically a fav unfortunately)- like the contemporary rebel reveling in its use of the archaic biblical vocabulary to praise queer beauty and love, an old 'foe' of the church and christianity - it was laugh out loud funny at times paired with some of the most gorgeous and aching declarations of queer, specifically wlw love. i had so much fun, pride and almost had butterflies at times. but reading "words of consecration" and "the song of shulamit" : (here's a little piece, not in its entirety)
"i have compared her, my love,
to the compagny of unicorns in sappho's garden
to the grotto cool of the nymphs.
a bundle of myrrh is my beloved unto me.
shhe shall lie all night betwixt my breats,
bruised the red blood of roses.
my beloved is unto me
as a cluster of green carnations
in the gardens at mytilene.
o my spouse, she who cometh from the wilderness.
love prevails because it is a life-giving as water,
more perilous than death; it never waits.
let my beloved into my garden.
let her eat pleasant fruits,
wear crowns of roses and crocuses.
i found her whom my soul loveth.
i held her and would not let her go.
my beloved is mine and i am hers."
OH GODDD I WAS ON THE FLOOR ALREADY BUT I FELL !!! I COLLAPSED !! AND I CAN'T GET UP !! if i'm ever loved like that poem loved her strange women, i really might die. the way austin wrote about women is just... i'm so jelaous, i need someone to talk about me like she did even though i might die, i would be feverish!! but also literally kill me if i am not loved like this !!
no but this collection of poems was so needed for me, like it's a reassuring, loving, affirmative feminist collection, i felt welcome and treasured, like oh wow. absolute love.
April 6, 2024
bad❤️
April 4, 2024
A nice concept but most of the poems just made me go "girl, what?" The top review on here says this is Ethel Cain-coded, which is kind of an insult because she could write better shit than this. idk man, catholic gay girls deserve better.
April 11, 2024
i feel bad saying this but i was expecting more....nothing wrong with celebrating queer joy in poems but this was just felt very surface level & more like a series of tweets than actual poems? that said there were a couple standouts & i feel like if the majority of the book had been more like those it could've been excellent?
job 1:21
your mother came naked from her mother's womb
and returned there gutted
cover yourself in a golden chamois
return to the forest adorned
job 1:21
your mother came naked from her mother's womb
and returned there gutted
cover yourself in a golden chamois
return to the forest adorned
April 29, 2024
Went into this expecting Ethel Cain vibes and was hit in the face with quirky camp
September 14, 2024
heaven is ten girls
who rate this book one star
because it's
the worst poetry collection they've ever read.
who rate this book one star
because it's
the worst poetry collection they've ever read.
August 16, 2024
Anything that can make me revisit Catholicism and laugh at it is a hit for me.
March 28, 2024
As you did it
to the strangest
of my sisters
you did it to me
MATTHEW 25:40
Next time I read this, I need to have the Bible and other resources with me because I'm sure I missed a lot. The prayers and liturgy and scripture I recognized that she had referenced did hit harder than the ones I didn't. But the reason this isn't getting five stars is because some of the actual verse in the poems flopped pretty hard. The ones that were bangers made up for those, but still can't give this a five. Seemed very much like a debut poetry collection (says the person who knows nothing about poetry and doesn't like it that much). But dang do I love Emily Austin's style. (Former and lapsed Catholics, this one is for you. Hope you don't mind a bit of well-intentioned blasphemy.)
[4.5 stars]
Read Harder Challenge 2024: Read an indie published collection of poetry by a BIPOC or queer author.
September 11, 2024
oh, just not for me... wanted to be impressed with this, but man, it really fell flat in many ways
Read
March 8, 2025I have no idea how to rate poetry, but for my first foray into that realm this was pretty great. There’s a lot of retelling and rehashing passages or scenes from the Bible — and although I’m (thankfully) past the point where that would have been liberating, I still thoroughly appreciated it.
February 22, 2025
Lo arranqué ansiando que me sobrecogiera, que me movilizara, que me dejase algún verso grabado a fuego pero confieso, con pena y un poco de amargura, que me dejó mayormente indiferente. Contiene un par de poemas que me gustaron pero al conjunto le faltó sustancia.
March 20, 2024
3.5/4! such a really cool concept, i just didn't connect with the poems as much as i wanted to, as they didn't feel super personal, but still a really cool collection. i love anything emily austin does. i found myself liking the poems near the end of the collection more. also, the cover is so good.
June 30, 2025
Heaven is ten girls
who take their lamps
to each other’s bed chambers
to read lesbian erotica
and make out.
I liked quite a bit of these poems and the recurring motifs (like this one above, 'Heaven is...'). There's wry sense of humor, there's queer pride and also some pain. I do think that me not being Catholic and also not remembering the bible from my grade 1-12 religion classes affected my understanding or connecting with a lot of the poems and I imagine references, and that's ok. It was a good time!
who take their lamps
to each other’s bed chambers
to read lesbian erotica
and make out.
I liked quite a bit of these poems and the recurring motifs (like this one above, 'Heaven is...'). There's wry sense of humor, there's queer pride and also some pain. I do think that me not being Catholic and also not remembering the bible from my grade 1-12 religion classes affected my understanding or connecting with a lot of the poems and I imagine references, and that's ok. It was a good time!
August 11, 2024
While I am not a gay girl, I am a Catholic school survivor. These poems scratched a very particular itch in my slumbering adolescent brain.
Read
October 8, 2023i’m probably not the target audience for this since i know pretty much nothing about the bible, however, i will read and love anything that emily austin writes. totally looking forward to when this collection goes out into the world because i can see it being impactful for a lot of people.
July 7, 2024
I love Emily Austin, I really do, but these were soooo superficial. Filling in Bible verse Mad-Libs with queer words doesn’t automatically make something a poem, I fear. As a fellow Catholic school gay girl I see where the impulse is coming from…but I just didn’t see any artistry in these.
March 30, 2024
periodt !!!
June 20, 2025
ok my religious trauma REALLY LOVED this book omg
October 8, 2024
Un poemario bellísimo en el que cada texto es un retelling queer de pasajes de la Biblia y otros textos cristianos. Me han encantado especialmente todos los inspirados en la parábola de las diez vírgenes (Mateo:25). Como este, que traduzco libremente, aunque son varios.
“El cielo son dos chicas
que llevan sus lámparas
al dormitorio que comparten
para llamar a la exnovia de ambas
y preguntarle ¿qué pasa?
¿Cómo estás?
¿Te apetece quedar para comer mañana?
El otro día estuve pensando en tu madre.
¿Qué tal Mary? Saluda a Mary de mi parte.
Estoy aquí con Delilah. ¿Quieres hablar con Delilah?
Vale, te la paso.
Adiós, yo también te quiero”.
Y también la versión queer de “Joy to the World”, que es una pasada:
“¿Estás oyendo lo mismo que yo?
El Cielo y la Naturaleza están cantando
son drag queens
cantando a coro
Alegría Queer Para El Mundo
mientras dos hombres bailan despacio
y leo un mensaje de une amigue
que ya lleva cuatro meses con testosterona
y ahora se llama Felix
que significa Feliz
repite el sonido tan alegre
hay un personaje bi en una serie de TV en horario de máxima audiencia
y una bandera del Orgullo en el ayuntamiento
repite, repite
en la biblioteca hay una estantería con libros infantiles de temática queer
un niño está cogiendo uno, su padre sonríe
mientras le dice “muy buena elección, colega”
y voy a decirle a alguien “te quiero”
y esa persona me va a decir que también me quiere
y nos vamos a casar y a concebir inmaculadamente un bebé
con nuestros espíritus santos y la bombilla para cocinar el pavo
o a lo mejor no lo haremos
quizás solo escribiré un poema sobre esa persona a la que amo
con el que la gente gay pueda ser feliz al leerlo
y cuando sea vieja me acordaré de ellos con orgullo
pensaré en la suerte que tengo por haber amado a alguien
y haber tarareado la canción del Cielo y la Naturaleza”
Qué joyita de libro, gente. Qué joyita.
“El cielo son dos chicas
que llevan sus lámparas
al dormitorio que comparten
para llamar a la exnovia de ambas
y preguntarle ¿qué pasa?
¿Cómo estás?
¿Te apetece quedar para comer mañana?
El otro día estuve pensando en tu madre.
¿Qué tal Mary? Saluda a Mary de mi parte.
Estoy aquí con Delilah. ¿Quieres hablar con Delilah?
Vale, te la paso.
Adiós, yo también te quiero”.
Y también la versión queer de “Joy to the World”, que es una pasada:
“¿Estás oyendo lo mismo que yo?
El Cielo y la Naturaleza están cantando
son drag queens
cantando a coro
Alegría Queer Para El Mundo
mientras dos hombres bailan despacio
y leo un mensaje de une amigue
que ya lleva cuatro meses con testosterona
y ahora se llama Felix
que significa Feliz
repite el sonido tan alegre
hay un personaje bi en una serie de TV en horario de máxima audiencia
y una bandera del Orgullo en el ayuntamiento
repite, repite
en la biblioteca hay una estantería con libros infantiles de temática queer
un niño está cogiendo uno, su padre sonríe
mientras le dice “muy buena elección, colega”
y voy a decirle a alguien “te quiero”
y esa persona me va a decir que también me quiere
y nos vamos a casar y a concebir inmaculadamente un bebé
con nuestros espíritus santos y la bombilla para cocinar el pavo
o a lo mejor no lo haremos
quizás solo escribiré un poema sobre esa persona a la que amo
con el que la gente gay pueda ser feliz al leerlo
y cuando sea vieja me acordaré de ellos con orgullo
pensaré en la suerte que tengo por haber amado a alguien
y haber tarareado la canción del Cielo y la Naturaleza”
Qué joyita de libro, gente. Qué joyita.
November 7, 2024
Poetry isn’t for me and my biblical education wasn’t strong enough for this to hit so hard, but this was a pretty charming subversion of catholic scripture. It will absolutely make a solid gift for my more religious sister.
Read
March 21, 2024idk i know nothing about the bible so i feel like i can't give this a rating
February 12, 2025
I think if I was more familiar with the Bible/ had a religious background I would’ve appreciated this more. Overall I still really enjoyed reading!❣️
May 6, 2024
Rounding this to 3.5 stars because I was genuinely touched by some of the poetry in this collection, but I do think that a lot of the shorter ones are better off as tweets. Going to read it again later during my train ride home to get my thoughts together
October 24, 2024
i really enjoyed this collection of poems! i think campy is the perfect description for most them and i love that! just wish some were a bit longer and more fleshed out
Read
October 13, 2025its hard for me to rate poetry sometimes, because it’s nearly impossible to view each individual one as worthy of the same rating. so I won’t. but, just know: this made me cry. it made me smile. and isn’t that the poetry equivalent of 5 stars?
Displaying 1 - 30 of 502 reviews