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Aaron Shurin is the author of ten books of poetry and prose, most recently King of Shadows, a collection of personal essays (City Lights, 2008). His work has appeared in over thirty national and international anthologies, and has been translated into French, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Romanian, Slovenian, Ukrainian, and Greek. His honors include literary fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the California Arts Council, the San Francisco Arts Commission, and the Gerbode Foundation. A longtime educator, Shurin is a Professor in the MFA Writing Program at the University of San Francisco.
The author of some dozen collections of poetry, there is a subtlety to Shurin's work, a series of invisible turns that take time to sink in, and a cadence that appears straightforward but is actually understated, twirling tricks around in air. --Rob McClennan ...Throughout Citizen, Shurin produces kaleidoscopic visions of urban and domestic daily life, of sprawling cities and small shimmering objects. Most importantly, he takes the prose poem 'to where the beautiful nights dance like bears.' Citizen promises a journey to a space somewhere in between now and the future, which readers are sure to find both fascinating and familiar. --Melissa Hohl, Small Press Distribution These new, 60-plus, mostly one-page are bursts of lyric intensity and sensual imagery with at times hints of personal passions and sexual moments--'...A pulley system raising chin or ass--yanked in--grommet eyes--your grin flushed out as your hand clutches...' Each of the solid texts is saturated with words, a rush and a tumble of exciting and excitable but at all times controlled excess. This is writing that is volatile and nuanced, vivid and innovative, vital and inviting. --Richard Labonte, Q Syndicate The best pieces, like 'The Stillness,' a monologue by a character who dreams of being a sailor, are moving meditations on human desire; the fluid sentence structure beautifully captures a man's sense of longing. Shurin's strangely evocative imagery is also a delight to unpack, as in this intriguing line from 'Cool Dust': 'A heave of afternoon light pulls a tulip from the turf.' --San Francisco Magazine Shurin's ear is finely attuned to prosodic potential; each prose poem in Citizen delights in probing the dangerous acrobatic potential of working on the prosodic wire above the wide space of the prose poem. What a delicious pleasure for readers! --X Poetics His writing folds the mundane and the mythic in with deep images of personal archetype. The passing moments in which the poems possessed Shurin are held fresh to the page in a dazzled string of trigger-touches. They hint of lingering spiral passages, personal journeys, which lie just below such occasions. --The Critical Flame The voice--playful, charming, and self-deprecating--creates an engaging persona...These prose poems certainly deserve praise for their rich musicality. They almost overflow with effervescent lyricism...This citizen lives and thrives on a current of lilting language that swarms and swims through him. --John Bradley, Rain Taxi
