"The poems in this collection undulate and glitter darkly like light on deep water; they exist between here and some other place, high-up, where the whole of the human myth first began. They know the almighty power words possess, and they wonder, if I quench my thirst, who stays damned to dry up? They are heavy with the responsibility of our history to this planet and our ability to keep showing up for each other. Often these poems speak to us in the morning as if to tell us that we, too, have been sleeping, and it is time to wake up. Krut's honesty feels sacred; his generosity gives us a safe place in which to reflect and galvanize. Oh Oblivion is truly a collection to read and reread for years to come." — Colleen Louise Barry, author of Colleen

"Oh Oblivion is a startling collection of oddities. These poems are constantly negotiating with the reader, daring us into dream-like spaces of the poet's creation. A lake has a heart, God is created from pages of leaves (by whom?), 'The sunset is caught / in the throat of this neighborhood, / where we stab the dusk // with abruptly started cars.' There is truth to be found here—these poems are often eco-poetical with wildfires, petroleum, empty lakes, and strangled birds—reality read through the language of dream. This collection attempts the divine, and invites us as readers to its altar." — Danielle Hanson, author of The Night Is What It Eats

"'Prayer or toast, / I don't know which / I'm writing at this hour.' So begins the phantasmagoric, midnight lyricism of Robert Krut's latest work, Oh Oblivion. Through his balletic prosody and kaleidoscopic leaps, Krut fashions a realm where the quotidian and the grotesque merge, blurring the line between the dysphoria of our waking lives and the raw matter of the dreamworld. At turns philosopher, dancer, apparition, and cryptid, Krut raises the membranous curtain of our consciousness, imploring us to sail along the waters of our knotted limbos to discover the interstitial prayers that our reflections whisper back to us when we sleep. It's in these liminal spaces that Krut's beautiful disquiet shines, asking us to sink into the absurd, raise a glass to our apparitions, and offer a 'Prayer or toast, a coming or going / an exit, an entrance.'" — Adam Stutz, author of The Sham Tapestry

Oblivion's Desk
Nocturnal Cartography
Interior Decorating
The Cryptid
Photosynthetic Self Surgery
Improvised Plasticulture
The Somnambulist's Table
Paperwork
The Darkness
Go with Terror
Drinking a Single Glass of Water
The Loons
Too Old for New Devils
Dancing Underwater
Thirst
Writing the Bible's Footnotes
Negotiation Skills
The Divine Butcher
Water Prayer
A Story About the Feast
An Apple Is an End unto Itself
A Burning Sun Never Sets
You Can Always Blame Something
Keep Your Intentions Close
The Arborist Speaks
Lighting Up the Garden of Eden
Biosonar Dawn
Cloud as Gravity
A Toast
The Colony
The Solution Eats Its Own Tail
The Driver
Travel Correspondence
Sound Is Light, Light Confesses
The Showman's Humble Request
Picnicking
Embark
Housesitting
Backdrop to the Backdrop
Unintended Borders
Lunar Bargaining
An Offering Is Infinite
Oh Amnesia

Notes
Acknowledgements
About the Author