Here are some books I’ve written.

Published in 2023 by Metatron Press.

Mapping affective geographies of memory, The Snakes Came Back cracks open everyday tasks and familiar landscapes to reveal their haunting depths. Saturated with heat and wind, Mathis’s poems vibrate with the will to face life’s temporality, its impossible contradictions, its beauty and its pain: There is loss, but there is renewal too.

Praise

“In The Snakes Came Back, Lora Mathis sets themself free, climbing out of their body, running through fields, careening down highways, longing spilling everywhere. Vulnerable, wise, and playful, these poems are a balm for loneliness — they feel like a hangout with an old friend, kettle whistling in the other room. Her words are as relatable, resonant, and unforgettable as ever.”
— Amy Berkowitz, author of Gravitas and Tender Points

“The Snakes Came Back is full of beautiful, graceful sentences, humor that’ll surprise you, and down-to-earth, unpretentious philosophy. Absolutely glorious. You will read this book many times.”
— Adam Gnade, author of The Internet Newspaper and After Tonight, Everything Will Be Different

“Lora Mathis’s newest collection of poetry The Snakes Came Back is sure to be a hit with both new and longtime readers. Building on their plethora of work, Mathis bluntly perceives and analyzes the Self and what it means to be a person with layering memories that live within you. The Snakes Came Back and Mathis isn’t afraid of them. There is courage in these poems.”
— Erin Taylor, author of Bimboland

Available at: Asterism (U.S.) Metatron Press

Copies at:
Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego and Burn All Books (San Diego)

Published in 2022 by Burn All Books.

The observer is watching. The observer is noting their body moving in time. The observer is inbetween timelines. The observer is in and out of time, looking.

Here I Am In It by Lora Mathis is a series of personal inquiries into writing on one's self, into the truth found in surveying the banal, into tweeting, "What is an observer?"

48 pages, risograph printed and sewn bound edition of 150, each copy is a handmade and unique publication from Burn All Books.

Available at: Burn All Books.

Re-published in 2021 by Party Trick Press.

First edition published by Where Are You Press in 2015. Second edition published by Party Trick Press in 2021.

The second edition of The Women Widowed to Themselves features added essays and artwork by the artist. This was their first book of poetry, originally published and written in 2015, when they were 21 years old. The first publication gained attention on Tumblr, where the artist regularly shared their poetry and art. At 27, they were approached by Party Trick Press to revisit and republish the work. The republication of the book has the artist inserting their older voice into sections of the book. They acknowledge that when they read the first edition of the book, their thoughts would interrupt the poems to reflect on the ways their life and attitudes have changed. The artist took the opportunity to add essays reflecting on art making as a way of sharing traumatic events, when the past should be put to rest, spectatorship and being viewed online, self-harm and sexual assault, and the way time moves and shifts.

100 print copies were made. The second edition is available as an e-book via Party Trick Press, with parts of the poems links to a website with songs, artwork, and videos made by the artist in 2015.

Available at: Party Trick Press