Terrarium

“I want to grab a coffee with the speaker of Terrarium. I want to walk around with them and listen to all the funny deep things they have to say about art and what they did last night and the bizarre things that live on the internet. I want to go off on a tangent with the speaker of Terrarium and never come back and end up in some bar, at last call, drinking whatever a curdled birthday cake shot is. This book brought to mind the line by Wallace Stevens, “And there I found myself more truly and more strange.” This is a strange book, brilliant and true.” -- Kayla Czaga, author of Midway
“In Terrarium, Matthew Walsh builds a world teeming with donkey statues, deer skeletons, and howling dogs, gentle and unsettling observations of daily life, and the wry wisdom of a tender, visionary voice. These brilliant and devastating poems of intimacy and estrangement are a masterclass in understatement and the subtle music of the poetic line. What a joy to peer inside Walsh’s “wet mysterious brain” and live awhile in the compulsive, whirling universe of these poems.” -- Cassidy McFadzean, author of Crying Dress
“What’s really beautiful about Terrarium is its confessional tone, its pure and unabashed honesty. The speaker tells the truth as they see it, and the observations become well-crafted images and metaphors.” -- Kim Fahner * periodicities *