The Blue Absolute

by Aaron Shurin

The Blue Absolute’s prose poems are hot boxes of lyrical language combusting with daily life. People move and think amidst a flurry of dots and dashes in a constant shift of perspective and action―urban and pastoral, highly figured and fragmented, grieving and dreaming―each poem a compressed but fluid zone of almost psychedelic intensity. The book closes with “Shiver,” an American epic, at once a lament for and vision of a great city on the edge: San Francisco past, present, and future.

Genres: Poetry, LGBT

80 pages, Paperback

First published February 4, 2020

About the author

AARON SHURIN is the author of fifteen books and chapbooks, including the poetry collections Involuntary Lyrics (Omnidawn, 2005), The Paradise of Forms (Talisman House, 1999), a Publishers Weekly Best Book and, the prose collection, Unbound: A Book of AIDS (Sun & Moon, 1997). His work has appeared in over twenty national and international anthologies, most recently Nuova Poesia Americana Contemporana (Italy: Oscar Mondadori, 2006). Shurin's honors include fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the California Arts Council, the San Francisco Arts Commision, and the Gerbode Foundation. He is Associate Professor and Director of the MFA in Writing Program at the University of San Francisco. "

Reviews

[Shravni · Rating 3 out of 5]

I picked this up after a long time of taking a poetry hiatus and I wasn't disappointed even a bit! Love Shurin's writing, it's poignant and moving.

[Maryam · Rating 5 out of 5]

An absolutely beautiful book. So glad I had the opportunity to read this in my college poetry workshop course.