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The Shore
The five poem-essays of Chris Nealon's The Shore give space and voice to the complexity of contemporary life, admitting bafflement and dismay but also creating openings for indiscreet hope. Queer and anti-capitalist, they urge us not to be ruled by our fears, while always ethically navigating the forces—race, class, age, gender, and others—that put us each in different places of power. Nimbly exploring connections among beauty, friendship, and politics, The Shore gives our era of crisis a language at once vernacular and philosophical, in a form that's both teeming and fluid.
104 pages, Paperback
First published April 17, 2020
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
June 7, 2024
Rly sweet. Made me want to commit to more vulnerability in writing! Rather than aiming for surprise. The guilt or ambivalence of being a global north white male poet/intellectual felt rly honest, the global scope transcended focus on self (it’s rare to be done well, when it’s done well it’s resonant to me as a global north poet/goodreads intellectual haha)
Texted that bit about imagining his child rather than himself living thru the end of capital to many ppl
And! “I imagine only history will tell me whether it’s mine to recite the names of the murdered in my poems, when I didn’t know them… many mediations separate me from the political dead… but if it’s not mine to name them in whatever genre this is, I need to learn the contours of the genre in which I could, / Especially if it’s not poetic”
“The death-pulse of commodities is just an imitation of the waves that pass through us”
The shore as the edge of some vast time / future / revolution, scary but
Texted that bit about imagining his child rather than himself living thru the end of capital to many ppl
And! “I imagine only history will tell me whether it’s mine to recite the names of the murdered in my poems, when I didn’t know them… many mediations separate me from the political dead… but if it’s not mine to name them in whatever genre this is, I need to learn the contours of the genre in which I could, / Especially if it’s not poetic”
“The death-pulse of commodities is just an imitation of the waves that pass through us”
The shore as the edge of some vast time / future / revolution, scary but
May 20, 2021
“You look down at your impression in the grass and go oh, so that’s why we sleep on our sides…”
Blown! Away! I went in with no knowledge of Nealon, only a love for Wave Books. Worth every single word.
Blown! Away! I went in with no knowledge of Nealon, only a love for Wave Books. Worth every single word.
October 21, 2024
[rating = D]
Though I champion queer voices, I just didn't chime with this one. Unlike Mark Doty or Sean Hewitt, Nealon didn't reach me. Though there are several longer sections in the middle poems that I understood and considered of value, the majority of the text illuded me in meaning.
Though I champion queer voices, I just didn't chime with this one. Unlike Mark Doty or Sean Hewitt, Nealon didn't reach me. Though there are several longer sections in the middle poems that I understood and considered of value, the majority of the text illuded me in meaning.
July 11, 2020
SOME YEARS AGO, I read Christopher Nealon's Foundlings, a brilliant study of some instances of the LGBTQ sensibility breaking (or almost breaking) the surface of public culture in the decades before Stonewall. I only found out recently that Nealon is also a poet--he was one of the readers at a Zoom poetry reading I caught this spring. And a really good one, at that.
The Shore contains five poems, all of them a bit longer than average--ten to twenty pages. Part of the length is accounted for by Nealon's use of "one-line stanzas" (as I think he calls them in one of the poems), single lines standing all by themselves as a sort of moment of their own in a thought process--"Down into matter, flux, the green world" or "The whole taut net of the social order." This generates a fair amount of white space--some pages may have only ten or twelve lines--even allowing for that, though, the poems do feel like "long poems," taking their time, unfolding a thought, crossing it with another, then wait-a-minute-what-about-this, then touching on something from a lifetime of reading, then connecting an old memory.
The effect reminded me of the soliloquies of Henry VI or Richard II in Shakespeare's history plays. Nealon's poems have the same process of opening up of a thought, but are also similarly erudite (helps to know who Ascanius and Hocquenghem are, for example), lyrical ("a hint of lemon in the eucalyptus"), self-aware, willing to probe old wounds, also willing to test out new ideas--"branched thoughts, new grown with pleasant pain," as Keats says.
When Henry and Richard give their major statements, they are both insiders and outsiders--royal, but deposed--abject and commanding the heights at the very same time. Nealon's exploration of queerness (throughout, but especially in "You Surround Me"), whiteness ("White Meadows") and the perils of our late capitalist moment (throughout, but especially "The Shore" and "Last Glimpse") have that self-aware clarity that Henry and Richard have when things have gone completely to hell, and might even persuade one that the insight gained is worth the cost of things having gone to hell.
The Shore contains five poems, all of them a bit longer than average--ten to twenty pages. Part of the length is accounted for by Nealon's use of "one-line stanzas" (as I think he calls them in one of the poems), single lines standing all by themselves as a sort of moment of their own in a thought process--"Down into matter, flux, the green world" or "The whole taut net of the social order." This generates a fair amount of white space--some pages may have only ten or twelve lines--even allowing for that, though, the poems do feel like "long poems," taking their time, unfolding a thought, crossing it with another, then wait-a-minute-what-about-this, then touching on something from a lifetime of reading, then connecting an old memory.
The effect reminded me of the soliloquies of Henry VI or Richard II in Shakespeare's history plays. Nealon's poems have the same process of opening up of a thought, but are also similarly erudite (helps to know who Ascanius and Hocquenghem are, for example), lyrical ("a hint of lemon in the eucalyptus"), self-aware, willing to probe old wounds, also willing to test out new ideas--"branched thoughts, new grown with pleasant pain," as Keats says.
When Henry and Richard give their major statements, they are both insiders and outsiders--royal, but deposed--abject and commanding the heights at the very same time. Nealon's exploration of queerness (throughout, but especially in "You Surround Me"), whiteness ("White Meadows") and the perils of our late capitalist moment (throughout, but especially "The Shore" and "Last Glimpse") have that self-aware clarity that Henry and Richard have when things have gone completely to hell, and might even persuade one that the insight gained is worth the cost of things having gone to hell.
May 19, 2020
Love it. I mean, the energy, the lines! The perfect poems for right now.
"There's gonna be a lot of fronting about 'the apocalypse' between now and the apocalypse"!
The whole thing is so sharp and desperate, reflective and hilarious. The momentum and the--ebb and flow--often it seems the exasperation will get to a height, then be relieved by humor, reflection. The shifts in register are excellent.
Man. "graduate school" sexuality; that whole action about "all my sexual fantasies are really just breathing exercises"!
"There's gonna be a lot of fronting about 'the apocalypse' between now and the apocalypse"!
The whole thing is so sharp and desperate, reflective and hilarious. The momentum and the--ebb and flow--often it seems the exasperation will get to a height, then be relieved by humor, reflection. The shifts in register are excellent.
Man. "graduate school" sexuality; that whole action about "all my sexual fantasies are really just breathing exercises"!
December 18, 2023
This tackles subjects of capitalism, queerness, and privilege in a unpretentiously refined, clear way.
"And the whole perfume of ashamed resentment, I get that"
Nealon comes to terms with how patriarchal society simultaneously rejects and celebrates his various identities as a white, queer cis man. There was a refreshing balance of elegance and grittiness to each poem, seamlessly blending equal parts restraint and complicated rage.
"And the whole perfume of ashamed resentment, I get that"
Nealon comes to terms with how patriarchal society simultaneously rejects and celebrates his various identities as a white, queer cis man. There was a refreshing balance of elegance and grittiness to each poem, seamlessly blending equal parts restraint and complicated rage.
March 30, 2020
3
I do like imagining high-value objects become nearly worthless
People just leaving their prized possessions lying around
It gives me a rest from that squirrel-y huddling near the outlets feeling
That well if a catastrophe hits at least my phone will be charged idea
So maybe just leave it on the toilet for the next guy
Maybe just delete all your contacts and go (5)
I do like imagining high-value objects become nearly worthless
People just leaving their prized possessions lying around
It gives me a rest from that squirrel-y huddling near the outlets feeling
That well if a catastrophe hits at least my phone will be charged idea
So maybe just leave it on the toilet for the next guy
Maybe just delete all your contacts and go (5)
July 15, 2023
Affective intensities, formidable wit. Nealon's dizzying tour is guaranteed to make you think and feel places you've never before touched. I recommend pairing with a strong cup of coffee on a slow afternoon.
December 22, 2024
from The Victorious Ones
There’s a river running backward through this poem to the sources of literature (9)
[…]
Your private perceptions—
Clarity—November like a wrung sponge—
Your eye hops over from the dissipated contrail to the crisp one and then tracks southward to the actual plane
Mental recapitulation of the sensuous world—like I had an ice-hand that could freeze the tip of every branch—
Ice world, white forest—
Held in some salinity—some meter—(19)
from You Surround Me
I’ve always had this feeling that maybe all my sexual fantasies are really just breathing exercises
Like you clench your body to release your diaphragm
Like you drop for a moment down into something only seemingly abyssal
Down into matter, flux, the green world (38)
from White Meadows
I know no hybrid poetry can bridge the gap between the flowered procession and the unmarked grave
I know there’s no right ratio between the peso and the dollar, any more than there’s a fair price for a loaf of bread (58)
from Last Glimpse
Then I gave it up
I gave up thinking that the song I heard was the song of the world
I gave up lyric, gave up reverie, I gave up aesthesis—
I left my notebook on the park bench open with its pages riffling
I kept my head down
I said OK fine Elon Musk is the most important person on the planet
I did not read “Ozymandias”
But like that monument I started to crumble
Down I fell, down into earth, down into its deep revising heat—
And on the other side, my life’s antipode—
Everything just slightly realigned
A hesitation in the driverless cars
A hint of lemon in the eucalyptus
Also absence—
A shimmer in the air where epic had been
A little grave of daffodils around the first-person pronoun
Quiet but not silent—a pitter in the canopy—
You look down at your impression in the grass and go oh, so that’s why we sleep on our sides…
You no longer need to know the end of the story (75)
There’s a river running backward through this poem to the sources of literature (9)
[…]
Your private perceptions—
Clarity—November like a wrung sponge—
Your eye hops over from the dissipated contrail to the crisp one and then tracks southward to the actual plane
Mental recapitulation of the sensuous world—like I had an ice-hand that could freeze the tip of every branch—
Ice world, white forest—
Held in some salinity—some meter—(19)
from You Surround Me
I’ve always had this feeling that maybe all my sexual fantasies are really just breathing exercises
Like you clench your body to release your diaphragm
Like you drop for a moment down into something only seemingly abyssal
Down into matter, flux, the green world (38)
from White Meadows
I know no hybrid poetry can bridge the gap between the flowered procession and the unmarked grave
I know there’s no right ratio between the peso and the dollar, any more than there’s a fair price for a loaf of bread (58)
from Last Glimpse
Then I gave it up
I gave up thinking that the song I heard was the song of the world
I gave up lyric, gave up reverie, I gave up aesthesis—
I left my notebook on the park bench open with its pages riffling
I kept my head down
I said OK fine Elon Musk is the most important person on the planet
I did not read “Ozymandias”
But like that monument I started to crumble
Down I fell, down into earth, down into its deep revising heat—
And on the other side, my life’s antipode—
Everything just slightly realigned
A hesitation in the driverless cars
A hint of lemon in the eucalyptus
Also absence—
A shimmer in the air where epic had been
A little grave of daffodils around the first-person pronoun
Quiet but not silent—a pitter in the canopy—
You look down at your impression in the grass and go oh, so that’s why we sleep on our sides…
You no longer need to know the end of the story (75)
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews