Published in March 2025.

The Outside unfolds a luminous tapestry of cosmic echoes and earthly intimacies. In a series of poetic dictations and divinations, Matt Trease navigates constellations of language, myth, and transcendence, inviting readers to dwell in mystery. An alchemical journey of perception, this book blurs the line between the tangible earth-breath and the infinite heavens.

“Matt Trease composes a propulsion of language carried by the energy of the Duwanish River, and of “old paths” and “fields I never knew.” Elemental and cosmological, the poem asks us to remain “in tranquility” as we try to “discover where/we actually live.” My favorite line: “The Source seeks harmony between/itself and the world/canoe.” In the spirit of reclamation, Trease’s language surrenders to The Outside the way gravity surrenders to earth, or sunlight to the sparkle of water.” – Sharon Theson

“We have entered an age where survival of the species is the invisible handwriting on the wall that gets more real with each sortie Gaia sends our way. Trease gives us tools to navigate this era and, connecting deeply with the now and here helps us remember what is at stake.” – Paul E. Nelson

“As we read Matt Trease’s polychromatic poems in The Outside, we touch and feel the poetry of entities and identities, enmeshed in an accordion of architecture and physics, spirituality and possibility. Gardens and nature are forever contained in his minuscule cross-spectral telescopes that allow us to construct and intimate inner landscapes of beauty, hope and magical, mystical variations of our present reality. ” – Gabriella Gutiérrez y Muhs

Matt Trease is a poet, artist, teacher, and astrologer. He serves on the board and teaches poetics through the Cascadia Poetics Lab, co-curates the Margin Shift reading series, serves as the poetry editor for the Celestail Arts Education Library Institute (CAELi) Review, and is the founder of InTransit Astrology, an astrology consulting and research company. He lives in the Salish Sea region of Cascadia on the homeland of the Duwamish people with his partner Xan, his son Harvey, and their dog, Hoopla. Connect with him at https://bio.site/mjtrease.

Paperback: $18.00. ISBN: 9781300720584

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