One Stands Guard, One Sleeps

Nancy Scott's voice is unique and unforgettable. In One Stands Guard, One Sleeps, we are allowed entry into the dramas of both ordinary and extraordinary lives, her work rendered in plain diction, infused with humor. These well-crafted, powerful and poignant poems flow beautifully and carry a punch. At work here is a sure hand, a caring heart, honesty.

Wanda Praisner, prize-winning author of On the Bittersweet Avenues of Pomona

In this volume Nancy Scott surveys her life with a loving, level gaze, speaking hard truths. Whether summoning immediate family members, lovers (actual and potential), businessmen, social service clients, or herself for review, she notes merits and flaws in just, sympathetic measure. Scott traces the signs of the times forwards and backwards, puzzling out the pattern in the drift.

James Fowler, editor of Slant, A Journal Of Poetry

Nancy Scott's poems show what life is really like. Whether they deal with her own life, close or casual acquaintances or her clients as a social worker, she confronts what she sees head-on, with uncompromising honesty. Her subject matter is the nature of life itself: relationships, innocence and its loss, the fallibility and vulnerability of being alive. The poems never fail to surprise, especially in their zinger endings, dry, wry, honest, and sometimes shocking.

Betty Lies, author of The Blue Laws