One God at a Time

by Meghan Privitello

Meghan Privitello’s stunning new book One God at a Time is a gorgeously profane collection of ecstatic abecedarians and erotic spiritual encounters. Within these poems, a corporeal and metamorphosing God becomes a weapon and a lover and a lesson in the mess desire makes of us. It’s the kind of book that makes you say wow so loudly when reading that you’re sure everyone in the coffee shop knows why you’re blushing, how God can do that to you sometimes, especially when Privitello is the one translating those urges. As she says in one of her poems: “you cannot believe in a god you cannot touch or ride,” but the pleasures in these poems are so real, they will make a believer out of you.
—Traci Brimhall, author of Saudade

“Let’s begin with the tongue,” Meghan Privitello’s One God at a Time opens. And oh, how I could not stop mine from moving: Privitello’s poems rolled off my tongue as they brushed through our “string of animal behaviors,” how we navigate the world via the modern trinity of Death, Sex, and Religion. Privitello’s power lies in her ability to declare (“When I undress, the dirt throbs / for me”) and question (“Why has love taken away my face?”) with so much bravado that you are always hit by something ruinous, blessed, truly holy and tender. Privitello beckons us to see how “each of our openings / is nothing if not an otherworldly kind of light.” I am on my knees, eyes fully open, in awe over these poems.
—Carly Joy Miller, author of Ceremonial

Meghan Privitello’s One God at a Time picks up where Plath left off. Plath kills God, but Privitello goes further. She and God perform a power play—sex and torture, bondage and domination. Privitello has written a book of profane genius. When the speaker declares, “I want unbiased animal love / It does not judge pudge or kink / I want to build a planet made of erections,” I shriek with joy: Meghan Privitello is the queen of rejected queer kids, bullied fat girls, slut-shamed women—all of us who built sacred spaces from the ruins of our forsaken souls.
—Claudia Cortese, author of Wasp Queen

Genres: Poetry

92 pages, Paperback

First published March 2, 2020

Reviews

[Claudia Cortese · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the best poetry books I have read in a long time! I wrote a blurb for it and my blurb did not do this amazing book justice!

Here's what I had to say:

Meghan Privitello’s One God at a Time picks up where Sylvia Plath left off. Plath kills God, but Privitello goes further. She and God perform a power play—sex and torture, bondage and domination. When the speaker declares, “I want unbiased animal love / It does not judge pudge or kink / I want to build a planet made of erections,” I shriek with joy. Privitello is the queen of rejected queer kids, bullied fat girls, slut-shamed women—all of us who built sacred spaces from the ruins of our forsaken souls. A work of profane genius, One God at a Time opens the doors to a church that refuses shame and exalts flesh, pleasure, desire. I love this book.

[Benjamin Niespodziany · Rating 5 out of 5]

Meghan Privitello's third collection of poems creates a bibliographic trifecta. One God at a Time deals with masculinity and dominance and sexuality and violence and sensuality and anger and blood and God, God, God.

Its voice is loud, its scrawl will scar.

"When God is panting on his knees like a dog he hasn't created yet, wrap your legs around his neck and let him smell your death."

[Carly Miller · Rating 5 out of 5]

I blurbed this book, so check it for the review! (Also, yes, please read this book--it's been a salve for these times and will continue to be for all times.)

[Amorak Huey · Rating 5 out of 5]

What if God were one of us, just a stranger on the bus overcome by bodily desire and working to make sense of the language we have for intimacy?

Beautiful, beautiful book.