David L. Wade writes like someone who’s been watching the world closely for a long time, because he has. His work blends the observational patience of a naturalist with the restless questioning of a philosopher.

In Todling into Oblivion, you’ll find pandemic diaries, urban vignettes and glimpses of far-off futures that feel unsettlingly close. Wade’s language shifts easily between the stark and the playful, the tragic and the absurd.

Whether he’s sketching a masked grocery line in the middle of COVID-19, imagining Stalin’s ghost wandering the aisles of a Kroger, or capturing the fragile promise of “Fresh Air, 2077,” his poems remind us that survival is as much about paying attention as it is about enduring.