I Swear Somewhere This Works: Selected Poems 2013-2023

A manifesto on love, poetry, and heartbreak. Essential for modern poetry readers.

"A time capsule of Mateer's most beautiful work."
- Catarine Hancock, author of Shades of Lovers

Titled after her viral poem about lovers in a parallel universe, in I Swear Somewhere This Works, ex-Tumblr poet Trista Mateer offers up a raw retrospective of the last decade of her career. The poet retraces her steps back to 2013 when she first began posting work online and she drags the reader along for the ride.

Featuring the best of Trista Mateer, alongside a look at the poet's first pieces published online, and new work-this moving collection of over 200 poems is introduced with a foreword by Caitlin Conlon, author of The Surrender Theory. In her words, "To read Mateer's early work is to remember what it is to be a teenage girl. You are messy with desire, thick with sentimentality. Everything feels like the end of the world because it is. [...] This is what Mateer's work does to its readers-validates and comforts all in one fell swoop."

"I'm so sick of reducing lovers to lessons: how to let go, how to stay, how to ask for what the heart wants."

Hardcover and paperback editions feature different covers. The hardcover is drawn by the poet herself. The Kindle & paperback share a cover drawn by poet and artist Arch Budzar. Additionally, both the paperback and hardcover versions have some personal annotations from the author, extra poems, and photos. (The Kindle version does not.)