"Childproof Sky, Trapper Markelz’ debut poetry collection, is a tender, poignant, and unflinching chronicle of the unthinkable—the death of a child from SIDS. Skillfully crafted, these poems orbit the ever-changing planet called grief with a haunting voice, startling imagery, and lyrical mastery. Ever aware of what is real, “like where her neck meets her shoulder, / or how these things / just happen to people,” yet receptive of the speaker’s subconscious leaving him “on the edge— / off belay.” Markelz offers his readers a “small heatwave into the sky, / a vapor path” into the galaxy of moving forward even when “there is no prevailing” and triumphantly declares the important truth that “we can persevere / this joyous existence.”
- Candice M. Kelsey, author of Choose Your Own Poem and Puzzling Things: Essays

"Childproof Sky is a book of contradictions. Markelz has written a collection where love and grief, presence and absence mingle. Childproof Sky is a parent’s cri de cœur that is at once heartbreaking and beautiful. It rewards those who read it more than once; as the first lines of the book remind us, “it’s important to have a place / you go to again and again.”
-Jordi Alonso, author of Honeyvoiced and The Lovers’ Phrasebook

"Trapper Markelz's poetry is raw, real and truly beautiful —each one an evocative journey from start to finish. Childproof Sky delicately weaves themes of love and loss into powerful, vivid poems that stay with the reader." - Eugénie Olson, author of Babe in Toyland, The Pajama Game, and Love in the Time of Tafetta