The debut collection from an American surrealist.   "[A] debut expansive in subject and skilled in practice."  The Millions , Must-Read Poetry "Renders ... psychological crises with matter-of-fact humility."   L.A. Review of Books "It's difficult not to grin, smirk, purse your lips, or generally screw up your face when reading..."  Kenyon Review "Fludde is magical, mysterious, and disturbing."  Rain Taxi   "...Immediate and engaging."  The Rumpus "Fludde is an experience, raw and honest."  BookBar  "An opportunity to jump off a cliff into an unknown universe." The  Collagist " Vivid, menacing, and lyrical set of nightmares for the times." Blackbox Manifold (UK) " In the aesthetic tradition of later surrealists ." Grist Journal Official Selection for The Rumpus  Poetry Book Club   Selected by Dean Young as winner of the Kathryn A. Morton Prize in Poetry, Fludde is a 21st century homage to William Blake that critiques corruptive American institutions with satire and surrealism. "[A] debut expansive in subject and skilled in practice." - The Millions, Must-Read Poetry "It's difficult not to grin, smirk, purse your lips, or generally screw up your face when reading Peter Mishler's poems in his debut book, Fludde. It isn't just the peculiarity of these pieces but the command with which Mishler executes it, taking readers in something like a swift punt along strange but otherwise unassuming canals." - Ryo Yamaguchi, Kenyon Review "For Mishler, as for his child speakers, the imagination is not a frivolous accessory or a source of escapism. It is an invaluable tool that makes possible a kind of metaphysical rebellion, even when artificial laws and boundaries in the "real world" seem to limit what is possible." - Matt Morton, Los Angeles Review of Books " Mishler's deft grasp of image as well as his unique voice keep these poems immediate and engaging." - Brian Spears, The Rumpus "[Fludde's] music, its vivid, outsized imagery, and its surreal associations are steeped in the Romantics, shaped by the Modernists, and communicated with a language so restrained and earnest it can stop your breath . . . . Fludde is magical, mysterious, and disturbing." - Michelle Lewis, Rain Taxi " Mishler integrates the harsh cacophony of the real world with the singsong whimsicality of the imagination . . . . Fludde is an experience, raw and honest." - Blaine Heydt, BookBar "Every line break is more than a breath, it is an opportunity to jump off a cliff into an unknown universe ." - Claudia F. Saleeby Savage, The Collagist Mishler's simple-seeming dreaming takes on denunciatory power and vision ." -Adam Piette, Blackbox Manifold (UK) " ... in the aesthetic tradition of later surrealists and the Black Mountain Poets " - Joseph LaBine, Grist Journal "Full of the feral joy of invention and profoundly animated, Fludde makes us feel, as only poetry can, that we've found a companion for our dream life. I'd say this is good news." -Dean Young, from the introduction to Fludde " The poems in Fludde make the uncanny uncanny again , no small feat in an era in which reality surpasses the imagination at every turn. It's when we're closer to being persuaded into thinking that the role of invention is to come up with tools to best convey real life's inconceivable scenarios that we most need our imaginings. Mishler's roam defiantly free, as in the realm of the oneiric and children's fabulations. This book is incredible. " -Mónica de la Torre " There's a powerful moral imagination at work in Fludde, and its poems are darkly and passionately self-knowing about the consequences of how the childhood self is, as it grows, incorporated into the world around it. Read all of the poems in this wonderful book. It's a joy to experience Mishler's individual skill, his inventiveness, his beautiful knowing versification." -David Ferry Peter Mishler is the author of two collections of poetry: Fludde, which won the Kathryn A. Morton Prize (Sarabande Books, 2018) and Children in Tactical Gear, which won the Iowa Poetry Prize (University of Iowa Press, 2024). His poetrt has appeared in The Paris Review, The American Poetry Review, Poetry London, and Granta. A long-time contributing editor for Literary Hub, he lives in Kansas with his wife and two children. OLD WORLD   I am collecting insects from the ground before the water table turns on us again. I am breathing in the bread of the living though my little ghosts are in tune with what I take. Let me not deceive you first flowers of sacrilege: I won’t go bawling from the labyrinth, my rashes and sores handled wrongly. The physician may rest in his mountain. The wefts and warps of the globe may rest. My love with her tongue at the tip of the truncheon. Me with my tongue asleep at her hipbone. A field of horses disperse before the revelling places for monsters. Let the beleaguered return to their safes. Let the dying be returned to the sea.