In Lieu of Solutions

Author: Violet Spurlock

Publisher: Futurepoem (2023)

A crash course in 21st century gender trouble, I have been waiting for a book like this forever, one that I could give to an ex-girlfriend, a secret crush, or a future self. Expansive, layered, unimpeachable, I sort of forgot poems could be like this–giddy, "prone to dizziness," and yes, a little reckless, but mainly in the way that it imagines the ontological realness of having titties while shamelessly flirting with the dialectic. 
—Lara Mimosa Montes

It is brave and bold to use the beautiful ferocity of your intelligence to rewrite the world. This is what Violet Spurlock has given us with In Lieu of Solutions. The poems in this book perform miracles of clarity in situations where there is no clarity. They analyze to survive and share the process of analyzing as a generosity of spirit. They dare to say what the fuck things are when the dinner turns into a death cult potluck, when the canto takes a fascist turn, when the doctor demands your numbers in exchange for care. Spurlock knows that this is what language, the poem, is for–and I am roused by it. 
—Stacy Szymaszek

This stunning debut collection by Violet Spurlock, a poet trained as a philosopher, is a trans ars poetica for our zeitgeist. Via a dazzling array of poetic forms, linguistic permutations, and neologisms Violet gives us an eye into the unresolved yet re-solving conundrum of being trans and a poet. Of transitioning but not transitioning yet. Waiting to transition. Having already transitioned and monitoring the size of one's "titties"–so that rather than solutions, there is a way to live. A way towards life. A way of life. And the way is through poetry. "A word was made different in response to a need," she writes. And every word is spot on. 
—Julian Talamantez Brolaski