Trespass: Poems

The 2013 National Poetry Series selection, chosen by poet and novelist Charlie Smith.

Established in 1978 by legendary editor Dan Halpern, the National Poetry Series has discovered many new and emerging voices and has been instrumental in launching the careers of poets and writers such as Billy Collins, Mark Doty, Denis Johnson, Cole Swensen, Thylias Moss, Mark Levine, and Dionisio D. Martinez.

Trespass, the winner of the National Poetry Series open competition, showcases a powerful poetic talent who explores the darker side of domestic life with unique and startling vision.

An unflinching look at the inheritance of family trauma:

• Intergenerational Trauma: A son traces the devastating ripple effects of his father’s actions through the generations, revealing how one secret can shape a lifetime.
• LGBTQ+ Poetry: Lyrical, intimate poems that explore queer identity, love, and heartbreak in the shadow of a difficult family history.
• Raw and Honest Voice: Written with startling clarity and emotional courage, this collection refuses to look away from difficult truths about abuse, memory, and the struggle for forgiveness.
• National Poetry Series Winner: Selected by judge Charlie Smith, this collection was chosen for the prestigious award that has launched the careers of many of America’s most important poets.

The 2014 National Poetry Series selection chosen by poet and novelist Charlie Smith

“Dooley’s new voice is a full, grand-sweeping appraisal of the banalities that domestic life has to offer... A masterful debut.” - Booklist

“Tender, nuanced, angry, and answerless...” - Publishers Weekly

“In these jumpy, surprising poems, Thomas Dooley treads fearlessly as he reveals the submerged secrets of a family and gives utterance to the erotic pleasures and pains of love. Trespass is an intense, eye-opening debut.” - Billy Collins, former Poet Laureate of the United States

“Thomas Dooley’s Trespass pierces and heals simultaneously. These terse tropes of lyrical compression, personal and universal, seem naturally calibrated and expand within the reader’s mind—every word emotionally exact.” - Yusef Komunyakaa, Pulitzer Prize winning poet

“Pierces and heals simultaneously....Trespass sings the music of now, shaped on the lathe of experience, and through the pleasures of physical knowledge, revelatory imagery, and imagination, this collection transports us.” - Yusef Komunyakaa, Pulitzer Prize winning poet

“A chart of the soul or the heart rattling like a pearl in a matchbox—or ‘passages of fullness’—or the windows of a fading housefront slid open and quickly closed, leaving an afterimage, if it’s that much, of a stony radius, untransformed and providing pain and a marred beauty to the one whose memory it is, and beauty and compassionate insight to those who, observing, catch a glimpse of the dire world—’If I forget,’ Dooley says, ‘remind me.’” - Charlie Smith, poet and novelist