In Consolations David Whyte unpacks aspects of being individual that many folks spend our lives trying vainly in order to avoid – reduction, heartbreak, vulnerability, fear – boldly reinterpreting them, fully embracing their complexity, by no means shying away from paradox in his relentless search for meaning.

Beginning with ‘Alone’ and closing with ‘Withdrawal’, each section with this life-affirming reserve is usually a meditation on indicating and context, an invitation to shift and broaden our perspectives on life: pain and joy, integrity and anger, confession and vulnerability, the knowledge of feeling overcome as well as the desire to hightail it from it all. Through this lens, procrastination may be a required ripening; concealing an act of independence; and shyness a thing that accompanies the initial stage of revelation.

Consolations invites readers right into a poetic and thoughtful consideration of words whose meaning and interpretation influence the pathways we choose and just how we traverse them throughout our lives.