The Warhol Pillows by Diane Wald

In Diane Wald’s marvelous new collection, The Warhol Pillows, we’re presented with the most trustworthy of voices, one simmering a long time in its experience. I’m reading this book wanting to underline every word, answering, yes, yes, it’s just like this, as the poems accordion between keenly observed to generously extended. They are wistful at times, detached at others, but always with a unifying wit and honesty. “I will not tell you again / what I have not told you before” she writes. There’s a theory here, about living, our livingness. And it comes with a warning, that communication, desire, these attempts at perfection, at what might have been, are continually fraught, and become, “an avenue to the endless ocean of the unseen.” It’s not an exhortation not to try, but rather an illustration of the difficulty of trying, as well as the difficulty of staying where one is, or wanting to. It’s both a solace and a caution, one well worth remembering, and being reminded of.

–John Gallaher, author of Map of the Folded World, In a Landscape, and Brand New Spacesuit

In The Warhol Pillows, Diane Wald proposes surprising even outrageous speculations without any particularly fancy effects, making them more apt to be true than if she clothed them in ordinary absurdity. She practices an honest and believable exploration of us and of the world in which we live. Tenderness underlies the poet’s voice and an acceptance of clairvoyance supports her grip on reality. Psychic behaves like a partner to careful and loving observation. She says “I knew it would be hard, but not this easy.” She says “Live in as many worlds as you can.”

—Dara Wier, author of Reverse Rapture, You Good Thing, and in the still of the night  

The poet speaks not knowing, and the poet speaks of knowing. The poet dances between epistemology and epigraphy, flinging veils like Loie Fuller, spinning reverie out of pillow cloth like Sei Shonagon. Sometimes you need a dream to remind you of reality. Diane Wald’s days emerge “seamed together,” where figures meet in “unbound gold,” reader and world flickering between states of consciousness. This poet has a wry knowledge that feels not hard but softly earned. Wald slyly foretells our paradoxes and lets us down easy before we knew we were up: “things are better now, though not perfect” and “I was what I’d always wanted.” This book is fantastic and just what I needed—now, whenever that is—rich and full and a reminder of everything important.

–Sandra Doller, author of Chora, Man Years, Leave Your Body Behind, and Founder & Editrice of 1913 Press