Wilt

Wilt is a collection of rousing poetry about transience, human absurdity, and the struggle to find meaning in an uncaring world.

Winner of the 2024 Chiron Book Award
Winner of the 2024 Firebird Book Award
Runner-Up for the 2024 Pencraft Book Award

#1 Amazon New Releases in Contemporary Poetry

Praise for Wilt
Steven wrote one of the best poetry collections of this century with White Knuckle. His next book, Caffeine, followed this tradition with a “Faulkner-from-across-the-pond” brilliance. Wilt takes us back into some of the same places as Steven’s older work. But this time, it’s more cynical and fucked than ever.
— Matt Wall, Poetic Anarchy Press
★★★★★

Wilt pulls no punches, makes no excuses. With muscular dexterity and delicate attention to the nuances of feeling and memory, the ache of late-night reveries, the sting of residual trauma, the distaste for a world run by psychopaths and the vulnerability of love and tenderness in the face of it all. Steven Bruce’s rare, authentic voice fixes each poetic moment to the caulk board in verses steeped in resilience and resistance.
— Dr Bob Beagrie, Poet and Lecturer
★★★★★

Wilt is stunning and fiercely honest about what depletes us. We suffer from the war within and the impossibility of peace. Carl Jung writes that what we repress will come out in anger. Bruce’s poems were written in the trenches of humanity’s rage: the fears, addictions, poverty, child abuse, war, poor health, and other social ills. Bruce flips his finger at the status quo, which has made life absurd.
— Barbara Leonhard, Masticadores USA
★★★★★