Austin Gustin-Helms (Austin’s Bookshelf)

Cody Draco’s Spirit of the Cowboy is a bold, genre-defying collection that fuses queer identity, Southern grit, and cultural critique into poetry that cuts and confesses in equal measure.

Writing from the shadow of Kentucky’s expectations and through the lens of queerness forged in a deeply gendered world, Draco takes on everything from internalized shame to national amnesia, from lost love to political fury.

Standout pieces like “Ballad of a Backwoods Preacher” and “Ghosts of the Past” echo with questions of faith, repression, and what’s left when masculinity collapses. There are nods to Whitman and Ginsberg, but Draco’s voice is very much his own—sharp, skeptical, wounded, and still hopeful.

There’s beauty here, and sorrow, and anger. The kind of anger that’s personal, political, and deeply American. And yet the collection ends on a more tender note, reaching toward connection and something like peace.

A strong collection, and one that belongs on the shelf of anyone interested in queer literature, contemporary poetry, or the emotional wreckage of the modern American myth.