Hard Child

by Natalie Shapero

Natalie Shapero’s Hard Child is a necessary companion for a world filled with ambiguity. Possessing rapid-fire comedic timing, Shapero touches on subjects such as religion, perpetual war, birth, and death—exposing humanity’s often faulty sense of what’s important and displaying a willingness to self-incriminate. These poems exhibit an expansive, searching sensibility that balks at the standard-issue hopes and fears of modern American culture.

Genres: Poetry, Nonfiction, Adult, Poetry Plays

96 pages, Paperback

First published April 11, 2017

About the author

Natalie Shapero is a professor of the practice of poetry at Tufts University. Her most recent poetry collection is Hard Child (Copper Canyon, 2017), which was shortlisted for the Griffin International Poetry Prize. Her previous collection, No Object (Saturnalia, 2013), received the Great Lakes Colleges Association New Writers Award. Natalie’s writing has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, Poetry, and elsewhere, and she is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, a Ruth Lilly Fellowship, and a Kenyon Review Fellowship.

Reviews

[Tom · Rating 5 out of 5]

So good. I need to read it one or two more times to thoughtfully comment. It's emotionally intense. Painful at times. I think this is a close summary, "All I have coming in this / world is a joke that hits me later" (from lines 2-3 in "Winter Injury").

[Brian · Rating 3 out of 5]

There's a darkness and a well-reasoned, descriptively clear sense of anger in these poems. The anger however is tempered by an underlying sense of humor and, ultimately, a sense of compassion. But, then, maybe that's just me...
"... the dinner/ of neighbors at which man I never/ had met before said "I don't fear dying"--/ "look at the past, people have been dying forever, and--"/ then he stopped and shook his head--/ "I drank too much. I was almost saying/ that people have died forever and all/ of them survived, but of course"--he made/ a hard laugh--"God, of course they didn't survive."

[ciel · Rating 5 out of 5]

my unedited inner-child reaction was Demi Lovato bellowing "I think I have a heartatta-a-a-a-aaack". i'm classy if nothing else?

haven't been so over the moon about poetry in particular in a hot sec. so much going on in this collection (in the best possible way). unfortunatelym since i read this on my e-book (cry) i don't have good notes yet for a fully-formulated review or takes more specific that 'OMG!'. will get back to this one.

can't believe i was in Natalie's area just a few weeks ago without knowing about Natalie Shapero but another voice tells me that frantically knocking at her door and thanking her on my knees would be A *Bit* Much. o well.

[Hayden Casey · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5.

christ! part 2 killed me dead.

[Julia Bucci · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Not Horses

What I adore is not horses, with their modern
domestic life span of 25 years. What I adore
is a bug that lives only one day, especially if
it's a terrible day, a day of train derailment or
chemical lake or cop admits to a cover-up, a day
when no one thinks of anything else, least of all
that bug..."

[Caroline · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars

Overlooking the unfortunate cover (so literal!), I really loved this collection. Shapero is a poet that takes risk, and I appreciate that. Maybe not every metaphor and conceit worked out, but the ones that did... man, did they work. She touches quite a few subjects, but the collection is pretty controlled; they all seemed to tie in together. I have to say I feel very concerned for Shapero after reading this, but I know poems /= the poet necessarily. But seriously, things get pretty dark in this collection, so don't read it if you're easily triggered by mentions of suicide and depression.

The poems about motherhood were some of the strongest for me, weirdly, since I am not interested in the subject in general. But that's the power of her writing. It takes you by the shoulders and forces you to listen. Shapero really doesn't mince words. I know that's a phrase that gets said a lot, but for real, she doesn't hold back and she doesn't coddle the reader. I frequently cringed while reading these poems, but I couldn't look away. And I made sure to only read this book at times when I was completely undisturbed and undistracted, because I felt like they deserved my full attention (the fact that I don't always read every poetry collection that way is perhaps not good, haha).

Anyway, to circle back to motherhood... Shapero writes about the misgivings of bringing a child into a world with so much war and vice, this "thwarting era" as she calls it in "Survive Me." Some of the poems in the first section suggest miscarriage. My favorite was the poignant "What Will She Goes As?" which ruminates on possible costumes for a baby who would be born on Halloween, and coming up with historical babies who were lost (Moses, Baby Jessica, the Lindbergh baby). "This costume works best if the baby is nowhere to be found." In the opening poem, "My Hand and Cold," she talks about having two lists of baby names, one for if the baby survives and one for if the baby is lost, and somehow ties it into enclaves (yes, the geographical concept). She does that kind of thing throughout the collection so masterfully, and every time I was amazed by the creativity. That's what I meant by saying she takes risks. This whole collection, I felt like I was reading things I'd never read before, even on subjects that were familiar. Only she could have written these poems. That's so rare to find.

Later poems deal with postpartum depression. "Home Scale," which is featured on the back cover, hit me like a ton of bricks. You just really need to read this poem. Trust me.

The collection also touches on religion, but not in a preachy way, more of a spiritual questioning way. It made sense, what with all the existential angst going on.

I definitely recommend this one.

[Leigh Anne · Rating 3 out of 5]

Is it stlll post-partum depression if you were depressed BEFORE you had the baby? Asking for a friend.

Shapero's speaker does, indeed, come across like a friend, if you have a tendency to befriend tough-talking pessimists. Divided neatly into two parts, Shapero spends the first half describing the speaker's worries and state of mind during her pregnancy, then turns darker with poems that reflect the speaker's love of her child, but also her desire to just not be on this fucked-up planet anymore. It's a fine line, and readers who have themselves suffered post-partum depression will want to read this only if doing so would being cathartic rather than triggeirng.

Shapero's speaker reminds me of the way people talk back home: tough and no-nonsense. That this matter-of-factness makes good poetry might suprise the snooty set, but is no true revelation to those of us who have always found the beauty of hard things. Recommended for all poetry collections.

[Jennie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not my style.

Too many books to read.

[Caspar "moved to storygraph" Bryant · Rating 5 out of 5]

she's an icon she's a legend and she is the moment

[Nadine in NY Jones · Rating 4 out of 5]

The running theme throughout is the bizarre and stressful experience of new motherhood.  I saw other reviews praise this collection for its humor, but that's not the word I would use.  It's not serious, not exactly, but it's not humorous, either.  This is dark and a bit stressful and almost always off-kilter.  It is witty but it feels too serious to be called "humor."  You get the sense that Shapero is a woman who has repeated nightmares, all of them about losing her baby somewhere and not being able to find it again.

Outside Less
I have been outside less, I have taken to saying,
in the days since my daughter was born—
passive, as though it were somebody

else who bore her. And bore her, I also have
taken to saying, as though she were a hole.

I have witnessed a woodpecker force,

through the week, a gape in my neighbor’s
barn side. I have watched as my daughter
knocks, woodpecker-like, her searching mouth

into my breast. But I don’t mean to say
she instills in my body an absence. What nothing

assembles within me was already there.

[Altan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Two thumbs up 👍👍

[Rosie B · Rating 5 out of 5]

Poems that make you go, how can anyone be this talented??

[Laurel Perez · Rating 5 out of 5]

Shapero contemplates the long investments and fleeting attachments humans make in their turmoil-ridden lives, exuding both mischievousness and melancholy while maintaining a sort of crude optimism. A new mother, her admission in the title poem that “there isn’t one/ human tradition I would choose to carry/ forward” reveals as much about her poetry as her lack of interest in doing things conventionally. Shapero demonstrates an ability to follow observations to unexpected ends.

Shapero’s way of entering poems is irresistible: “Museums of war, they bore me.” They are a comedian’s hook, already prodding the audience to anticipatory laughter. In the body of the poems she deploys what I’d call one-liners, even if they aren’t: “A bird screams out my window like an alarm I have / set to notify me when a bird is there.”

This collection of poems is united not only by mode and voice, but also by its particular obsessions, including the surrealism of motherhood, a dubious God, and that “worst / sort of lurker,” death.

[Frank · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm sure Shapero selected her smiling author's photo on the back cover in order to reassure readers that she's fine, really a happy person, not to worry.

The main themes in this volume's collection of poetry are her pregnancy, her alienation, and thoughts of death. And biblical musing. There's not a spot of joy to be found in any verse.

Her poems read like explanations of her thoughts, feelings and observations which lead to considerations. Conversational, but more like monologue.

Nice use of language, thoughts and feelings well expressed. While we are mostly very different I did find a little commonality with Shapero.

[Steven · Rating 4 out of 5]

"One was charged
with delivering blood through the dim
aquarium of her body..."

"To be, he said, an American, is to find you have lived
your whole small life on the back of some
starving and saber-toothed creature that has,
all the while, been killing and killing and killing."

"And the heat, with its uncertain grip,
like a child's hand required to always be held
when crossing streets."

[GW · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved this book of poems. I gave it a two because I had just read a book of poems that was horrible, and my 2 is as high as I want to go. What's more important is I killed a baby sparrow that had fallen out of a next and latter I felt so guilty I donated my entire collection of Jazz Cds to the local friends of the Library. I'll never be the same after Ms. Shapero. I'd love to attend Tuffs to learn how to write like that. Life is pain and to struggle is art when elaborated on so gracefully as in this book. I'm not so pissed at myself anymore and Hard Child is why.

[Amanda Moore · Rating 4 out of 5]

As with many contemporary poetry books, this one drags a bit in the middle, the same tricks again and again instead of reinvention, variation. Still, Shapero employs her wit and distinct voice to good effect, offering lines and transitions that crackle on the page.

[Matthew · Rating 3 out of 5]

There is a bit too much "humor" in these poems. Not my teacup.

[Steve Angelkov · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.25 / 6.5 out of 10.

enjoyed this collection of poems.

enjoyed the author's style and wit.

[Tyler Barton · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have never laughed out loud at poems about death more.

[giuseppe manley]

picked this one up after encountering "Absence, That Which Never" on Twitter. I think the name is kind of misleading, I went in the Lady Bird direction (which I have never seen, but I heard the car scene, they talked about it on NPR a while ago, and now people make all those memes using it, so I imagine I know what it's all about), like "oh, you're such a difficult child," kind of 209 millennial, etc., but it seems like a different kind of hard child, I don't think the speaker is supposed to be the one referred to by it, even though the cover kind of encourages that misreading, and the blurb / promo material as well, which I'm not sure I get, other than maybe that it turns some gut punches into real sucker punches, at least a little bit, which is okay, but there are some real gut punches in this book regardless, I think, and the last few poems especially slap pretty hard, as the kids would say. also it's maybe kind of elliptical, which is maybe good or bad or just okay.

[E · Rating 2 out of 5]

There were a handful of lines throughout this collection that I enjoyed.

That said, after reading the majority of these poems, I found myself feeling like there’s so much more to them, and wondering what the poet isn’t saying.

There were so many moments where it felt as though Shapero half-described an experience or connection to some past event, but stopped short of fully explaining it. There was so much use of Germany and WWII as allusions, but I struggled to figure out why or how that connected to the larger project (this book, this collection of poetry).

Some of the moments just felt very forced, and that’s an especially hard thing to sit with when the moment is doing something like describing intense events (death, genocide, loss of life during childbirth, etc) in a way that doesn’t actually advance the narrative within the poem.

[Lacy · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5/5 stars (rounded up to 4)

Really interesting, fun poetry collection. I love the way Shapero discussed parenthood. All the poems felt so honest and raw. A lot of the collection felt infused with humor and I enjoyed that.

"Scrubbing the kitchen, she told me she had three
hearts. One was charged
with delivering blood throughout the dim
aquarium of her body, one was dead
along with her mother, and one persisted
to grieve on behalf of the world."

"And what are they
doing, the hospital, asking again
about any self-
harm and then packing the baby into your amrs,
saying avoid the dismal
and also remember it's normal
for the baby to lose weight
in the first days, then regain it, you can check by stepping
onto a home scale holding
the baby, then you just subtract
your body from the scene."

[Caitlin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Natalie Shapero tells us she doesn't do God or The Past; both weave their ways, bleak and destructive, through the pages of Hard Child, an uneasy God, a past rife with violence, its tendrils reaching to present and future.

As bleak as these poems are, however, Shapero fills Hard Child with sly humor, with resilience (even if only in celebrating the staying alive), with new life fighting its way past Death and the Past. Remarkable, bleak, thought-provoking, Hard Child feels as though it could have been finished yesterday, as though it speaks to the violence, grief, and environmental destruction of today.

[Caleb Lail · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is kinda that quintessential what-I-want-in-poetry kinda poetry book. Sure, she kinda gets a little self-deprecating or otherwise straight up suicidal, but, darnit, it’s relatable. The poetic language is accessible but also rich. Her use of free verse and playing with form and layout is also really refreshing. I’m especially a fan of when several poems tie together. It’s not indicated initially by title or any sort of grouping, but if you sit and read the book through, you’ll see it happen and it’s quite delightful.

[Chris Roberts · Rating 1 out of 5]

Poetry suicides itself famously,
unpredictable drop dead dangerously.

Verse wraps around itself, a crimson choke vine
Sappho alone can rise-up the poem.

I foresee, in the days, an intellectual
and cultural suicide perpetrated on poetry readers.

Chris Roberts, God Dead

[Joe · Rating 5 out of 5]

"I've never dreamt of good things,
only battle cries and cavern
fights and me unarmed and snarled
in my slips, you know I have to
dress this way. I work for tips--"

last stanza of from "Bath or Escape"

//

"It took a box of crullers, handed from person to person around / the workroom, to make me understand I can't feel joy." first lines of "For Later."

[Curtis · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved Shapero's debut, "No Object," and eventually "Hard Child" won me over. My favorite poems included: "The Sky," "Ten What," "Home Scale," "Screens and Storms," "The Mind of Popular Pictures," "Low Light," "Mostly I Don't Want to Have a Son," and "Hard Child."

[Brandon Amico · Rating 5 out of 5]

There is such an enormous amount of life in these poems, it jumps from object to object and idea to idea like an electrical current. Shapero has an incredible wit that is honed against the struggles of life, both banal and absurd, and readers are able to witness this incredible eruption of the self.

[Matt McBride · Rating 5 out of 5]

There's a deep vulnerability behind the ironic humor of this collection. The discursive jumps belie a self that feels both unstable and threatened. If it doesn't break your heart, you're not my friend.