Michael Diebert's new collection interrogates the dynamics between self and body with a courageous facing of mortality, a disarming humor, and an embrace of the strange. At the core these poems shine with unsentimental clarity. They are probing, psychologically deep, direct, intimate, and lithe. These poems, just like the body, are proof of life.

—Andrea Jurjević, author of SMALL CRIMES and NIGHTCALL

Michael Diebert’s THRASH is a stunning and deeply thoughtful collection that acknowledges but does not concede to the divided self that inhabits us all—the part of us who does what’s expected—claps when appropriate, praises on point, attends when asked, but then there’s what we’d rather be doing. These poems capture the tension, doubt and disappointment of the persona, a man who chafes against society’s definition of masculinity with precision and wry humor. These pages are rife with the salt and pluck that good poems are made of.

—Katie Chaple, author of PRETTY LITTLE ROOMS