A review by selenajournal
King of Shadows by Aaron Shurin

5.0

I wasn’t familiar with Aaron Shurin’s work until I read it in my creative writing class. We read from his book of experimental poetry titled Involuntary Lyrics. I then had the extreme fortune of reading his book of personal essays titled King of Shadows. If I hadn’t already known, I would never have guessed that these books were by the same author. They inspire such different emotions and garner such opposite reactions.

Involuntary Lyrics is essentially a “riff-off” of Shakespeare’s sonnets. In Shurin’s world they no longer follow iambic pentameter or line couplings and A-B rhymes. What Aaron does is takes the last word from each line of a sonnet and rearranges them in a specific order (I actually sat down and figured this pattern out). Then writes his own poem. You’d be surprised how similar the general topic is in some of his experimental poems when compared to Shakespeare’s sonnets.

King of Shadows, on the other hand, is Aaron’s collection of personal essays and reflections on life. It broaches a lot of relatively controversial topics: the AIDS epidemic in San Francisco, the good old Leary days, drug experimentation, etc. But it also talks about his experience teaching elementary school students poetry, how children are or are not like flowers, and his experiences as a gay man in San Francisco.

King of Shadows was my favorite of the two. After having read most of the book in one fell swoop, I felt like I knew him personally. It felt like the next time I saw him, I had to tell him a secret of mine, to be fair.

Coincidentally, he was in town and doing a reading through the University of Washington. This was on Thursday the second. It was an intimate-sized event as only UW students were permitted. He was planning on reading from both Involuntary Lyrics and King of Shadows, so I brought both so I could follow along.

He began with a short introduction and told us that he’d read one story from King of Shadows, quite a few poems from Involuntary Lyrics first, then King of Shadows. And that we’d try to make that as natural of a shift as possible.

He read the Shrine from King of Shadows. It sounded different when he read it aloud then when I read it in my head. He read it with more feeling. Then he started reading sonnets. And his whole body became a part of the reading. As he read, his arms moved and his head leaned forward, moving closer to us. He finished off with Dahlias. One of the most touching reflections contained within King of Shadows.

Afterward, we got a chance to do Q&A. His answers to the questions were all incredibly thoughtful. He is very careful with his words. He spoke a lot about his influences - he was fortunate enough to study under Denise Levertov and Robert Duncan. When the event was over, many left, but a few of us stayed.

We spoke to him about his obvious Beat influences, his love-affair with San Francisco, his odd jobs between publishing books and before becoming a professor. He talked to us about how being a writer was putting on a pair of glasses, that allowed you to remove yourself from the world, to see yourself outside of yourself but in the moment. he said that you had to “be in the Way of poetry,” that being a writer was like being a wayfarer. He signed King of Shadows for me.

“To Lena, in the Way of poetry.” He feels like a friend.