A Holy Dread

by R.A. Villanueva

Winner of the 2024 Alice James Award


“…the holy dread with which we face that which we love most, or that which loves us the most…”
—Mary Ruefle, “On Fear” 


In this highly anticipated second collection of poetry, R. A. Villanueva reckons with identity, family, and history to illuminate the tenderness and calamity of the world we make together—the beauty and grief our children will inherit. 


A Holy Dread emerges from essential questions and fierce hopes about why we create, who we hold dear, and how we might brave “every small / catastrophe laced with joy.” Inspired by his experiences as a Filipino American writer, educator, son, and father, Villanueva’s revelatory new book expands on his celebrated debut, Reliquaria, with grace and intensity. 


Through explorations of faith and myth, experiments with praise songs, sonnet sequences, devotionals, and lyric fragments, Villanueva’s poems dare to reach for “all-trembling miracles” even as things fall apart around us.

Genres: Poetry

100 pages, Paperback

First published February 17, 2026

About the author

R. A. Villanueva is the author of A Holy Dread, winner of the Alice James Award (forthcoming in 2026), and Reliquaria, winner of the Prairie Schooner Book Prize (U. Nebraska Press, 2014). New work has been featured by the Academy of American Poets and National Public Radio—and his writing appears widely in international publications such as Poetry London and The Poetry Review. His honors include commendations from the Forward Prizes and fellowships from the Sewanee Writers’ Conference and the Constance Saltonstall Foundation for the Arts. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Reviews

[Caitlin Conlon · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was my first time reading anything by Villanueva, having received an arc of this through the bookstore I work for.

These poems were unrooted from concrete imagery, and I found myself rereading trying to find my footing. It seemed like I was missing context, even in poems where no context was to be had. Villanueva’s poems that referenced his son were my favorites.

Based on enjoyment, my rating for this would be closer to a 3 than a 4, but I think these poems are well-written and constructed. They just aren’t quite my style.

[Patricia N. McLaughlin · Rating 3 out of 5]

In this collection, the poems seem like extremely self-referential explorations of “Dasein,” as if the poet is having a private conversation with himself—and perhaps his family, his confidantes, or colleagues mentioned in the Acknowledgments—to explicate Heidegger’s theories of phenomenology, hermeneutics, and existentialism. That said, the play with sound and sense in some of the poems (e.g., “Paternoster,” “Pareidolia”) hints at a kind of Lacanian “Jouissance.”


Favorite Poems:
“Mass”
“We Open Class with Still Images Where”
“When Our Son Explains the Mathematics”
“Devotional”

[Justin Mason · Rating 5 out of 5]

I picked up this book after attending his reading at Prairie Lights. Reading this collection of poetry was almost as good as listening to him, Kaveh, and Hanif read his poetry. Highly recommend picking up this book! :)

[Angry.Sad.Motivated · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another beautiful collection - sound thick and rich enough to make me wonder what I’m up to as a poet.

[Nikita Ladd · Rating 5 out of 5]

The tone in this collection bounces so seamlessly between lyric and more grounded, confessional-like poems. Favorite poems were: "After Communion, Late Mass at St. Rose," "Namesake," "On my Deathbed I Will Remember This," "Book of Hours," and "For My Friends, In Reply to Your Question."