Solitude and Society

Scout Turkel

Solitude and Society radiates a poetics of attunement that is "gentle but not easy." Crowded with both people and ideas, these poems wander through public life in an alienated world. Turkel stages the lyric as technique, one suited for probing unanswerable questions about modernity, knowledge, nature, femininity, a poet's labor, and the dreams that visit us and choose to stay. Gracefully restrained without ever obscuring the heart, these poems keep vigil, then pucker with boldness and humor. Most of all, this subtle debut reminds us that poetry is a devotional practice of being wakeful in the world, especially when one so desperately wants to sleep and sleep.

'How refreshing to read these poems of wit and grace, of genuine feeling with an arch wink, set against a web of intimacies and anxieties and bright flashes of experience, the small pleasures that fill our days. The poems in Scout Turkel’s Solitude and Society—confident & expansive—craft a new way forward for us all. What a gift they are and she is.' – Sara Nicholson