Becoming Judas

The second collection by Nicelle Davis, Becoming Judas, is an \u201celemental bible-diary-manifesto,\u201d that weaves together Mormonism, Mamaism, Manson, Lennon, Kabbalah, and the lost Gospel of Judas into am ecstatic, searing meditation on raw religion. Nicelle Davis is a poet with an eye towards the spiritual. Loosely based on Davis’s upbringing in the back-room of a record store in Mormonville, Utah, this unexpected fusion becomes a \u201cspontaneous combustion\u201d of matter turning into energy. In these poems we encounter Jesus, Judas, YouTube, Joseph Smith, Hollywood, the Knights of Templar, Missouri, Utah, a prostitute, turnips, libraries, and God. Spirituality and faith eventually become, like Mallarm\u00e9’s \u201cDice Thrown,\u201d a game of chance: \u201cI know only chance. My feet will / won’t hit ground.\u201d Instead of choosing a faith based in the material world, which becomes a roll of the dice, Davis embraces the non-material of a pure energy: Let there be light.