Well Done, You Didn't Die
Verve Poetry Press
In Well Done, You Didn’t Die, Max Wallis returns with a searingly intimate and formally inventive pamphlet that refuses erasure. From the aftermath of breakdown to the first electric flickers of healing, these poems map the brutal, brilliant terrain of survival; mental illness, addiction, queerness, love, sex, shame, and the fragile dignity of staying when staying is a whole new thing entirely.
Wallis writes with wit, lyric fire, and radical candour. Whether speaking from the aftermath of the hospital bed or a hookup, future conversations with lovers-to-be, or the slow relentless work of sobriety, he never flinches. The voice is fierce and unguarded—at turns devastating, defiant, tender, and laugh-out-loud funny. A poem might stammer like a belt buckle or stream out in prose, incantation, or techno-prayer. Whatever the form, the message is unmistakable: “Well done, you didn’t die.”
Here is a poet documenting not only what nearly broke him, but how he rebuilt from ruin, choosing life, again and again. From “Cage” to “Prayer for Glitch”, “I Am 1 Year, 2 Months, 2 Days Sober” to “Instructions for What Happens Next”, this collection is both elegy and anthem. It is a document of return: to the body, to breath, to poetry.
“Survival is more than endurance. It is a quiet declaration: I live, I live.”
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