Steven Turrill

Orientation Steven Turrill

To go back in time, and forward; to go up to heaven and down to hell, interrogate the underworld; to go inside oneself, trying to escape the discomforting externalities of earthbound existence, only to encounter greater terror; to go then outside oneself and live for another person-these are the movements the poet makes as he orients himself in the world. In Orientation, the second collection of poems from Steven Turrill (author of a lot of bad things happening at once) and second part of a multi-book series that excavates his work from the past decade, the poet settles on a dyad of natural disasters-flood and pyroclasm-to explore themes of mental, emotional, sexual, and spiritual disruption. As the subjects of some poems, and the metaphors, motifs, and characters of others, the flood and the volcano are born to this book and continue through the rest of his work from this period. To counter these destructive elemental forces, Turrill calls on poetry itself-its sound and breath, music and silence, forms and structures and rules-for a set of spells and incantations to hold off despair.