"Wallen shows us the bits of skin and hair in the sink—signs of life clipped off. And celebrates when things actually work, like the key to her door."
— Amy Matterer
Details
Same Day consists of poems about time and discovery/re-discovery. Written mostly in the winter of 2021, this collection comes from a place of urgency that emerges from a sustained and desperate need to organize the chaos of experience through language. Through this cataloguing of touch, thought, response and action, the author shares an intimate portrait of the workings of her internal clock.
Author
Sarah Anne Wallen
is a poet and bookmaker living in Brooklyn. She is a recent graduate of Long Island University Brooklyn’s M.F.A. program, is founder of thirdfloorapartmentpress, co-edits Poems by Sunday, and her work has appeared in Sun’s Skeleton, By the Overpass, Brooklyn Paramount and Downtown Brooklyn.
Praise
In
Same Day, Sarah Wallen describes a loneliness that admits no freedom, no way out, no choice, no one who could possibly understand. Every day the same. Good morning, midnight. Even when the sun is shining, it’s dark outside. Wallen’s vivid poetic images bring this experience right into the reader’s heart. I couldn’t set it down."
— Barbara Henning
These poems lure me into the realm of overt everyday reflections and then make bold swerves that surprise and delight with playfulness and a wry deadpan wit. Like, imagine relating not wanting to do your dishes to a story about a girl who lights her house on fire because she sees images of tigers on her ceiling? That's a bold move, and Wallen makes it all cohere.
— Anna Gurton-Wachter
I’ve been reading
Same Day over and over for the last three months and I cannot stop. It captures the internal corporeal gossip of a watchful mind clocking the small details and making them matter most. In “Days of the Week” we get one thought per day (Thursday I find three free books/ Friday I get paid and order delivery) for 31 days, a record of what it’s like to be a writer just trying to do the work. Wallen shows us the bits of skin and hair in the sink—signs of life clipped off. And celebrates when things actually work, like the key to her door. It's stupid funny at times (when you’re a dog/ your mouth/ is your hand) with easter egg lines from Lady Lazarus and the emcee of Cabaret crooning about the world’s apathy in the face of fascism. This is a book about survival.
— Amy Matterer
Praise for Previous Work
Wallen crafts a punk female poetics located in the weird slippery surface of tone. Compressed, smart and raucous, the poems shimmer as they turn language back on its strange self.
— Karen Weiser
Wallen finds the music of uneven experience, erasing the false hierarchy between 'song' and 'speech' with poetry that speaks/sings, harshly, beautifully, from the page.
— Marcella Durand
Excerpt
From “Days of the Week”
for Lewis Warsh
Monday the crossword is easy
Tuesday begins with a “T”
Wednesday I get a bodega coffee and pay in quarters
Thursday I find three free books
Friday I get paid and order delivery
Saturday I stay in bed and forget to eat
Sunday I eat and cry
Monday the sun comes in hot through the window
Tuesday the heat is off and I can see my breath inside
Wednesday my toes never warm up
Thursday the line for the grocery store goes out the door and around the block
Friday I leave work feeling nothing at all
Saturday I think about love letters
Sunday I write a poem about wanting to write a love letter
Monday I do not write
Tuesday my period starts and I use toilet paper
Wednesday I go to the pharmacy and use self-checkout
Thursday I buy the newspaper but don’t read any of it
Friday might as well be Tuesday
Saturday the cats meow a lot
Sunday a bird lands on the fire escape – a rock dove
Monday I wear two masks
Tuesday I think a lot about how it feels to kiss someone
Wednesday I wake from a sex dream and cry
Thursday I wake again
Friday I wake again
Saturday I wake again, but later than the days before
Sunday I berate myself for being narrow and lazy
Details
Publication Date: November 1, 2025
