D.S. Waldman in conversation with Olivia Gatwood at Bart’s Books

"These poems move and change with light."   —Victoria Chang

In this rich, prismatic collection, D.S. Waldman guides readers through the halls of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, into encounters with Georges Braque and Frida Kahlo, and back through the landscapes of coastal California and his own rural Kentucky childhood. Along the way, formally experimental poems open into intimate explorations of fraternal loss and grief, love and romantic partnership, disability and the fragile human form, and the peculiar shapes memory takes. In one section--part essay, part crown of sonnets--the poet addresses the childhood accident that forever debilitated his hand, widening his aperture to the world and transforming his perception. Ultimately, through that experience and others, Waldman asks how--or whether--one can ever truly relate to another, or to the world.

Poet D.S. Waldman will read from Atria and be joined in conversation by Olivia Gatwood

D.S. Waldman is the author of the poetry collection Atria (Liveright/WW Norton, 2026).  His writing has appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Los Angeles Review of Books, ZYZZYVA, and many other publications. A former Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford University and recipient of Poetry Society of America’s Lucille Medwick Memorial Award, Waldman lives and teaches creative writing in New York City. He’s at work on a novel.

Olivia Gatwood is a poet, novelist, and screenwriter from Albuquerque, New Mexico. She has received international recognition for her poetry, having been featured on HBO, HuffPost, MTV, VH1, and the BBC, and more. Her poems have appeared in The Poetry Foundation, Sundance Film Festival, Lambda Literary, and The Missouri Review. She is the author of two poetry collections and one novel. She lives in California.