"Every artist lives in multiple realms—the public and the private, the perceived and the imagined. In Atria, D. S. Waldman explores the architectures of dream and poem with the eye of a Cubist: constructing a poetry that moves between theory and reverie, between textured music and frank retelling. There is depth here, great depth, as well as the illusion of depth—a narrative of both the confessed and the obscured, as form and content take turns in the foreground. Here, we enter a space of slippages and disguises as Waldman meditates on the preservations and annihilations of art and life, their markmaking and their erasures. Here, Waldman is both artist and subject, both meaning and pattern, where sometimes the smudge is revealed to be not paint, but turpentine."
—Richard Siken
“An understated, exquisite work of intellect and lucid attention, a minor geography made of language, suggestion, and absence. With Atria, it is clear that we are in the presence of a formidable and beautiful imagination.”
—Aracelis Girmay
“Suspended like a Calder mobile between poetry and nonfiction, between art theory and spiritual autobiography, this highly original book makes room for new ways of seeing and of feeling.”
—Richie Hofmann
"These poems move and change with light."
—Victoria Chang
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