The Shining

by Dorothea Lasky

As labyrinthine as its namesake, Dorothea Lasky’s  The Shining  is an ekphrastic horror lyric that shapes an entirely unique feminist psychological landscape.   Here, Lasky guides us through the familiar rooms of the Overlook Hotel, both realized and imagined, inhabiting characters and spaces that have been somewhat flattened in Stephen King’s text or Stanley Kubrick’s film adaptations. Ultimately, Lasky’s poems point us to the ways in which language is always haunted—by past selves, poetic ancestors, and paradoxical histories. 

Genres: Poetry, Horror

96 pages, Paperback

Published October 3, 2023

Reviews

[Delia Rainey · Rating 5 out of 5]

this book is intoxicating and beautiful and the stanzas and couplets worked inside me like labyrinth pieces or some tarot cards or little images inside a snow globe.

“When I was brought here / It looked just like the mountains / But it wasn’t / It was my life”

[June García · Rating 4 out of 5]

Me costó un poco leer en inglés, así que fue un libro que requirió de bastante esfuerzo. Hace mucho que vi El resplandor, por lo que muchas referencias se me perdían, pero más allá de ser un libro basado en esa película, los poemas por sí mismos me encantaron. Eran directos, grotescos y violentos, a la vez que reflexionaban sobre la poesía y ser poeta, eso me encantó.

"You know I love
A tortured love story
But this isn't what I planned for"

[Kaylee · Rating 5 out of 5]

Genius— thank you so much

[Kate · Rating 4 out of 5]

|| THE SHINING ||
#gifted @wavepoetry
✍🏻
I am walking through the hotel
Every time I am so sad
That I want to die

It's a place where I can keep
Everything I've never been
Brave enough to get to

Poets have moons and money
To get themselves through
The longest night imaginable

But I've had these rooms
To beckon me
With their own brand of patience

The warmest Rose emanates
From the hall near my bedroom
I'll enter if you will

I know that in this world
I will always be waiting
But you let go of life, with a thud

Instead I waited for you
Hiding here in plain sight
Like a flower
•
The Shining, Kubrick's adaptation of Stephen King's classic is one of my favorite movies. When I discovered that Lasky whose previous collection Milk I had enjoyed was publishing a feminist reimagining of King's classic and the film adaptation I was very excited to read it! This is everything I had hoped and then some. A psychological horror collection of poetry , sign me up!
It was macabre, delightfully bizarre, eerie and at times humorous. I loved how Lasky explores poetic form and language. Histories, hauntedness, past lives, isolation, and fear. As well as the characters and spaces within the hotel that were less emphasized previously felt so refreshing! The film leaves certain things unanswered, adding mystery and myth and I felt like this collection does a bit too. And yet I felt completely satisfied after finishing it. I am leaning more into horror these days, in all its grotesque beauty, maybe its the time of year but I hope not.

Thank you to @wavepoetry for sending this my way.

For more of my book content check out instagram.com/bookalong

[Melissa · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't like Lasky's early work, but this one is masterful.

[Becca · Rating 3 out of 5]

To be honest, I'm not a huge poetry reader but I really liked all the references from the original book.

[emma]

“For my entire life / What is this curtain of flesh / On the bed of our desire / I meant it when I said I loved her / Snow / Snow”

[lou · Rating 3 out of 5]

technically well-made, but lacking a lot of depth and character which made many of them feel flat; still, as always with poetry, some lovely lines and moments

[Pie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hi Mom!!

She’s done it again!! Dorothea Lasky is simply my favorite poet writing now. Her work is as close to alive as it comes. I took my time with this because I didn’t want to finish reading it… I didn’t want to be done with it. I can’t wait to read it again.

“Icky lousy horrible dread
Is what I feel every day of my life
So I wrote a book so scary
It would mimic real life
In all the worst ways”

I loved it. Every bit.

I love you mom, I miss you so much, all day every day.

Love,
Pie

[Ryan Macoubrie · Rating 2 out of 5]

This slim book of poetry was not what I expected it to be or what I wanted it to be.

I'd read a small blurb about it in an article in the New York Times. ( Newly Published Poetry, From Katy Lederer to The Shining https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/25/bo... )

And I thought, "Hey, a collection of poetry using the imagery and atmosphere of Stephen King's THE SHINING? Sounds good to me!"

So I ordered a copy of THE SHINING by Dorothea Lasky and read it all in one day, almost all in one sitting. It's very short (just 70 pages, with only 35 poems) and quick to read.

And while there are echoes and images of Stephen King's THE SHINING scattered in throughout the book, those references seem more like Easter eggs thrown in for fans to find -- like the book was banking on a large part of its success to come from fans of King's SHINING rather than from the fans of Dorothea Lasky herself or from the fans of modern poetry itself.

The core of the poetry all seemed to be autobiographical about the woman poet herself (Dorothea Lasky) and her relationship with a writer man who thinks he's a better artist than she is, and maybe he has cheated on her with another woman and been otherwise abusive, and Dorothea has some random memories of her sister. That's what the poetry is about. How Dorothea continues to be a poet despite these difficult circumstances.

References and echoes to King's SHINING are overlaid on top of this core story, with Dorothea cast as Wendy, her writer man as Jack Torrence, their kids (it seems like they have two kids together) as Danny, and Dorothea and her sister cast as the twins standing in the hallway.

It works, I guess. I wasn't the biggest fan of this approach, though. I really thought the book would be more about King's SHINING and less about Dorothea. But it wasn't. Which was disappointing.

( One of the last poems in the book, "Closing Scene," tells the ending of King's SHINING from Jack's perspective, and it was awesome -- my favorite poem in the book. The first half of the poem "Blue Hallway" is from Wendy's perspective: "I am going up the steps / With a knife / I am scared and looking around" -- and it's excellent. But then it transitions suddenly into being a poem about Dorothea and her life, and is less excellent. The first half of "Blue Hallway" was much better than the second half. )

Also, I am not the biggest fan of free verse modern poetry, which usually has no structured meters or rhymes, and this book is written in the free verse modern poetry style, so I knew going into it that I might not be the target audience for this kind of poetry. But even so, I confess there is some great modern poetry, and there was a chance this book was filled with great free verse modern poetry.

Turns out, though, not so much. As disappointed as I was with what the core of the poetry was about, that's just how disappointed I was in the written structure of the poetry itself, too. It was just like most other free verse modern poetry: lines of short uneven lengths, no rhymes, no rhythms, no meters, some striking visual imagery but not as much as I would have liked, some quotable bits and memorable lines but not many, and more abstract vagueness masquerading as profundity than I prefer. (In my opinion: Free verse modern poetry has half as many good thoughts as older structured poetry and takes up twice as much space on the page to say it.)

And what's worse: this book had almost no punctuation in it at all. No periods at the end of lines or thoughts, hardly any commas at all. That was unnecessary.

( Even though this is nit-picky, I have to say it: in the poem "Red Rum," Dorothea casts herself as Wendy out having a drink with her husband (Jack / real husband), and she writes near the end: "I am not crying / I am writing sonnets in my mind." But wait a minute: none of the poems in THE SHINING are sonnets. I wish there had been some real sonnets in there. They might have been excellent.)

So I was disappointed on all sides. Sucks for me.

The book wasn't actively, aggressively bad, though. Just not for me.

2 out of 5 stars.

[Kelsey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sheesh, really tough to review. I listened to an episode of Poetry Off the Shelf where Lasky talked about this collection and read some of the poems and I was blown away. But there's such a disconnect in how she reads the poems aloud and how they read to me on the page! I don't quite know what to make of it. On the page, most of these poems read as flat, dispassionate, empty of tension. When Lasky reads, I still hear the dispassionate tone of the poems, but it levies an incredible amount of tension and emotion.

I partially blame the decision to capitalize every line of the poems in this book. The lines are so short, and I read a capitalized word at the beginning of a line with an increased emphasis. The result is a distortion of the poem's rhythm. The lack of punctuation is also a contributing factor here. But I also got so much more out of reading Lasky read the poems because she explained what part of the story of The Shining the poems corresponded to. I have both read the book and seen the movie, but don't remember either well enough to track a book of essentially ekphrasis in the way I think the reader is meant to. Further, I'm not sure when I would have understand what was happening in this book without Lasky's interview -- I know it would've come eventually, but there's not even an author's note about the process of writing these poems and their connection to the movie. I don't think that's explicitly needed, but I don't know if this collection really works without a more explicitly stated relationship. Something that could have made a big difference, I think, is including time codes for the parts of the movie each poem corresponded to. Because every poem is written in the same poetic voice, despite there being multiple speakers, that would also help with figuring out who the speaker is at any given time. I also struggle a bit with the decision to give multiple speakers the same poetic voice -- it does give the book a more cohesive feel, certainly, but it also flattens the characters in a way.

[Tracy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have been a huge fan of Dorothea Lasky since reading Black Life in 2013. Add in that I also love horror (especially the oddness of Kubrick), and you've basically got a perfect reader for this collection.

Writing feminist ekphratic poetry allowed Lasky's interest in interrogating a universal I, one that considers the self and the reader, to flourish in interesting ways. It's the author/not the author, it's you/not you. You can see yourself while being revolted, like horror movies that reflect our culture back at us in heightened ways. The epigraph sets up this feeling, "The objects see me as I see them." - Paul Valery, then comes out swinging with the first poem, "Self-Portrait in the Hotel." Jack is an artist going to work in isolation, but he is overtaken by something larger than himself in the hotel. Wendy also has more space as a person in Lasky's collection.

You aren't scared
You know this is the part of the story
Where you go free (64)

The poetry collection embeds the feeling of the movie The Shining, while thinking more broadly about the artist and artistry. I loved it, I kept thinking about how the collection embodies one of my favorite poems from Black Life, I Am A Politician: "I will be very nice to you / But when I turn around I will write the creepiest poems about you that have ever been written". Lasky as written creepy AF poems in this collection, watching what has been done to each character in the hellscape of the hotel.

I did not love the repetition in Milk, but perhaps because horror was the subject, I was captivated in The Shining. It was like Lasky was saying, "can you see this!!! can you believe this!!"

[R.G. Evans · Rating 1 out of 5]

The more I read contemporary poems--an artform I practice with some success myself--the less I find myself understanding contemporary poetry. granted, the fault, dear Evans, may very well not be in those poems but in myself.

I was drawn to Lasky's book after reading a review for it in either the New York Times or The New Yorker. Inspired by Stanley Kubrick's adaptation of Stephen King's novel The Shining, the book sounded like something I would love. The cover of Lasky's book even borrows a font similar to the movie poster of Kubrick's film.

I read poem after poem, catching some references to the film and novel, but waiting to be moved emotionally or intellectually by something other than these references. What I found, instead, was a collection of poems as hermetic and cold as Kubrick's critics found his film itself. In a review of the book I learned that the speaker of most poems is supposed to be Wendy Torrance, the victimized wife of the possessed caretaker Jack Torrance in the original source material. I needed such a magic decoder ring for this as the various nebulous "I's" and "you's" of the poems seemed to exist in a void.

Many of these poems have been published in The Paris Review, The New Yorker, American Poetry Review and other lofty publications. Lasky herself directs the MFA program at (genuflect) Columbia University. Why, then, when reading these poems, did I see them through the lens of this passage from "The Mirror" on page 30 of Lasky's book: "Poetry with no roots / In the soil"?

[W.S. Luk · Rating 3 out of 5]

"He will find me there too/Rising from the bath/Body decaying within the stanzas/That he so loves but couldn't see fit/To publish in its own time..."

There's almost a nostalgia to Lasky's poems, which rework images from King and Kubrick's versions of The Shining to explore themes of alienation and haunting. Rather than being sources of horror, the ghostly voices in her verse seem defined by an aura of loneliness: in a poem that reimagines the sequence depicting a ballroom dance, the speaker exclaims, "...I invite them all in/All the people I was running from/Are here now/I am in the place I have dreamt about". While her language is often opaque, and I sometimes struggled to grasp the sense of what she was expressing, a sense of quiet yearning shadowed me even after I finished Lasky's book.

[Leigh Victoria Phan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection was a delightful homage to Stephen King’s novel and ensuing movie, but it also explores poetry and being a writer in such interesting ways. There’s a delightful amount of humor in this book that makes for a great breath of fresh air between the very suspenseful and more horror genre poems. Though it’s been quite a while since I read or watched King’s The Shining, reading poems from different characters’ points of view in Lasky’s collection was a delight. She really pushed the perspectives in a way that felt authentic to the characters but also goes far beyond what I might have expected. Very enjoyable read!

[mad mags · Rating 3 out of 5]

(Full disclosure: I received a free e-ARC for review through Edelweiss. Content warning for violence.)

It’s a perfect temperature in here And everything is clean
Except the souls

This part is a fairy tale But only the ending of one

And when you finally
Get to the bottom of the glass You’ll find me
That terrible terror of being That’s me

***

Dorothea Lasky's THE SHINING is a feminist reimagining of the King novel and Kubrick film, in which she manages to transmogrify the already macabre into poetry that's sometimes more bizarre than the source material. Though it initially feels like we're thrust into the POV of Jack's wife Wendy, Lasky in fact places herself in the Overlook Hotel, perhaps as an unsuspecting guest who's terrorized by villains both worldly and supernatural. Through Lasky, the audience becomes the hotel's quarry.

Lasky's poetry is delightfully eerie and grotesque; my favorite line, perhaps, concerns the phalluses undulating on the green carpet running up and down the hotels stairs. It's been years since I've read or watched THE SHINING however, and I feel like I might have gotten more out of this collection if I'd refreshed my memory first. As it is, I suspect that many of the references went over my head.

[H · Rating 5 out of 5]

The clarity the tone the colors the cinema 🕯️🕯️🕯️
I could read this book over & over for the rest of my life

“You could have picked anyone/ I chose to see the inner life/ it was orange, cream, and beating”

“I wasn’t saying anything/ I never wanted to say a thing/ I only wanted to see myself as vast and unknowable/ in some horrific ocean”

[LJ Rand · Rating 4 out of 5]

LOVE LOVE LOVE!!
Red Rum reminds me why I love poetry.
“I can feel the sweet bitters
Of the drink make me into a woman
I am not crying
I am writing sonnets in my mind”
I want to turn this poem into a wine and drink it while watching a romance in a dimly lit room. 🩷
I had to force myself to put this book down a couple of times so I could savor.

[Kai · Rating 3 out of 5]

While I didn’t love every poem in this collection, there were a few that I enjoyed and really captured my imagination. I felt that, even within poems I didn’t favor, there were strong stanzas that stuck with me. Overall, despite not becoming a favorite like I’d hoped, this was a short and pleasant read! 3.5⭐️

[alexis · Rating 5 out of 5]

And to be called a genius I pretend to act demure
And bat my heavy eyelashes
My husband says: “Oh I knew that she was a genius
From the moment I laid eyes on her”

I received an ARC through Edelweiss.

[Lola Anaya · Rating 5 out of 5]

this was a truly excellent collection of poetry, and it was even further enhanced by listening to dorothea read some of these poems at a live reading! i love ekphrastic poetry, and this collection is so potent with images and feeling.

[Kate Durbin · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a ghost maze. Mesmerizing.

[The_J · Rating 2 out of 5]

Really liked this title: Poetry Hates You Too -if that is enough to fulfill you please enjoy.

[Max Mars · Rating 4 out of 5]

Prendre enfin sa place
L'esprit tout greffé d'histoires
Parmi les fantômes

[sayalee mylavarapu · Rating 2 out of 5]

got to meet dorothea and she was the sweetest ball of joy - i have just never liked the shining and so i couldn’t find interest in the content (but will be looking into more books)

[Jes · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow I really loved this book.

[Reagan Kapasi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Liked: feminist mash up. Disliked: summary before reading would have been helpful (not included in physical book publication).

[b · Rating 4 out of 5]

You aren’t scared
You know this is the part of the story
Where you go free


!!!!

[Alex Jiménez · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

humbling to know I’m not the first poet to write about The Shining, but it was a little too on the nose…

[Brandon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Was lucky enough to get a signed copy of this honest eloquent poetic writing.