Aarik Danielson at Fathom magazine did a deep dive into my poem “Purity Culture,” from Madonna, Complex in this interview. It was an honor to interact with such a thoughtful and perceptive reader! Find the full interview at Fathom Magazine.
Early in her new collection Madonna, Complex, Fueston pens the poem “Purity Culture.” It’s an adult’s clear-eyed rejection of the rhetoric that ruined young adults who were trying to keep themselves from ruin. Then throughout her book Fueston continues to reckon with the flesh she was taught to fear, a God who shows up in paradoxes, and the ineffable beauty of a world that fills us up and lets us down. The book’s final section is a consuming fire, as Fueston exposes the lie that we can separate our political and devotional selves. She writes of a women’s march like a catechism, rehearses the liturgy of protest and makes an icon of Christine Blasey Ford—even as she acknowledges that “no ordinary woman ever tried to be a saint.”
“Because love is not a fullness, it’s an / ache. Because one God I’ve known has loved me most / when He took everything away,” she writes in “To a Friend, Lonely in the Fall.”
This line signifies the spirit of Fueston’s work, which rejects needlessly confining categories to reach a God who wants to be found.