“Matt McBride writes the poetry of my dreams. The deft and often overwhelming quality of his lines makes At the Mercy of the Flies one of the most addictive poetry collections I have ever read. Much of this book will never leave your mind.” —CA Conrad, author of The Book of Frank and Listen to the Golden Boomerang Return

“Matt McBride possesses a rare imagination, one that unearths a strange beauty from the everyday. In At the Mercy of the Flies, he delivers a surrealist fever dream where the mundane and the macabre collide under the flickering fluorescents of a Dollar General. Haunting, visceral, and tinged with humor—this is a poet everyone should be reading.” —Noah Falck, author of Exclusions

At the Mercy of the Flies is a fever that refuses to break. These poems slice through an ever-defamiliarizing world. Each taut stanza grounds the book in the real but twists the birds and sandbags and dandruff into the mystic and ontologically porous, both apocalyptic and transcendent. The surrealism is often eerie and estranging, but just as often personal and intimate. It merges the impossible possibilities to which we’ve acquiesced with impossible impossibilities that might just liberate us. Matt McBride’s poetry is unnerving and alert, joyfully illuminating our current alienations.” —Mathias Svalina, author of Comedy and creator of the Dream Delivery Service