DITCHLAPSE / [REALLY AFRAID]

tommy wyatt's writing ensures you get winded and wounded in this vivid recollection surrounding modern technology, identity, tragedy, and loss. right from the beginning, tommy's words guide you through their body and their personal tragedies, taken apart and meticulously inspected through the form of modern social media. DITCHLAPSE is the true amalgamation of the juxtaposition of tommy's selves: on media and in life. tommy's words ensure a crisis in DITCHLAPSE's readers, while furthering their own understanding of tommy, both as a poet and as a person. there is no limit to the level of understanding, tragedy, and identity crises that DITCHLAPSE induces upon its readers. DITCHLAPSE itself is best described as raw and visceral, and tommy does an absolutely amazing job conveying their emotions to their readers. -arushi (aera) rege

DITCHLAPSE, in its pursuit of exploring the liminality of the digital world and the experiences of mental health issues, creates a liminal space in itself. A world in which infomercials play mid-poem, selling you a miracle cure, as you listen to your inner monologue replay some of wyatt's experiences as if they were your own. The poems trap you like you're doom scrolling late at night, forcing you to listen with expert craft of form and metre, like they're exploiting the algorithm of your brain. DITCHLAPSE is a tour de force of glitches, stutters, and pixel projections, that make you feel seen in your darkest moments, lit up by neon. It aches with the burden of internet culture-the good, the bad, and the stigmatised. -Ozzy Welch, author of Toothache

tommy wyatt's words blow you away in this gently violent recollection surrounding their personal struggles with dissociation. right from the first page, their words hold your hand through what it means to live as tommy-a vivid retrospection of memories that surround you with tommy's experiences juggling personal identity, trauma, and PTSD. tommy's words ensure a thought-provoking, identity-crisis-inducing journey throughout [REALLY AFRAID]; wrapped in the bounds of words, there is no limit to the profound emotional impact tommy inflicts upon their readers. -arushi (aera) rege

[REALLY AFRAID] is a detail-rich, genre-defying collection. wyatt's innovation of what poetry can look like from one page to the next offers an engaging experience for the reader the whole way through. -Audrey T. Carroll, author of The Gaia Hypothesis and In My Next Queer Life, I Want to Be