Skip to main content

Distributed for Carnegie Mellon University Press

Goat-Footed Gods

Poems that center on the sinister American cryptid, the Goatman of Pope Lick.

In her sixth collection Goat-Footed Gods, award-winning poet, essayist, and teacher Kathleen Driskell seeks to rehabilitate the reputation of the infamous Goatman of Pope Lick, identified by The Washington Post as one of the deadliest cryptids in America. The Goatman or Pope Lick Monster, a legendary creature long rumored to roam the woods around Driskell's Kentucky home, is alleged to have caused the deaths of at least five young people at Pope Lick Trestle, a railroad bridge with a ninety-foot drop at its center. The Goatman lyrics are braided with poems about Driskell’s child’s traumatic injury from a fall. Always at the heart of Driskell’s poetry is her insistence that the path to the sacred is found not through the doctrine of ancient gods, but in walking clear-eyed through the dark woods of our historical past and exploring the never-ending wonder of the natural world.

Carnegie Mellon University Press image

View all books from Carnegie Mellon University Press

Reviews

"The world of Kathleen Driskell’s Goat-Footed Gods is a world of liminal spaces. Driskell’s deft lyrics are a reckoning with andness—the violence and beauty of the American South, the gift and harm of ancestry, the mind caught in the past and the one 'frilled with tomorrows.' Achilles drives dead man’s curve; Pan and Dionysus are teenagers in detention. As these poems attest, the membrane between myth and reality—both surreal, complicated, and strange—is thinner than we think. I'll be returning to this collection again and again to be reminded."

Maggie Smith, New York Times bestselling author of You Could Make This Place Beautiful

"There is magic on hand in Kathleen Driskell's remarkable new collection of poetry. She is tackling huge issues such as history, mythology, parenthood, heartache, and more, yet while her canvas is large, each poem is intimate, haunting, and perfectly constructed. Full of images you will never forget and luxurious language, Goat Footed Gods proves that Kathleen Driskell is one of our best poets."

Silas House, author of Lark Ascending and Kentucky State Poet Laureate

Be the first to know

Get the latest updates on new releases, special offers, and media highlights when you subscribe to our email lists!

Sign up here for updates about the Press