Hard Child

“Shapero writes in an urgent vernacular that flirts, stings, implores and demands with apparent abandon.”—Houston Chronicle

“Shapero’s poetics has real-world import for the way we use language to talk about messy things.”—Volta

Thought-provoking and sardonically expressive, Shapero is a self-proclaimed “hard child”—unafraid of directly addressing bleakness as she continually asks what it means to be human and to bring new life into the world. Hard Child is musical and argumentative, deadly serious yet tinged with self-parody, evoking the spirit of Plath while remaining entirely its own.

From Hot Streak

Actually it’s ridiculous to opine on what kind
of a dog I would be, were I ever a dog, as I don’t
contain within me half enough life to power
a dog. I WOULD BE A DEAD DOG, THAT’S
WHAT KIND, or
maybe a mere industrial object
boasting a low-grade animation, some odd beep

or flicker, like a dryer or a bulb. So, sure, I could
be a reluctant bulb, the only one still offering light
in an otherwise burnt-out fixture bolted
hard to a row house porch. And all those moths,
with no other place to die. Can’t they murder
themselves on someone else?...

Natalie Shapero has worked as a civil rights lawyer and is currently Professor of the Practice of Poetry at Tufts University. Her first poetry collection No Object was published in 2013, and her writing has appeared in The Believer, The New Republic, Poetry, and The Progressive. She lives in Massachusetts.