Natalie Shapero: Pick of the Week [ed. Terence Winch]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Sunshower

 

Some people say the devil is beating

his wife. Some people say the devil

is pawing his wife. Some people say

the devil is doubling down on an overall

attitude of entitlement toward

the body of his wife. Some people

say the devil won’t need to be sorry,

as the devil believes that nothing

comes after this life. Some people say

that in spite of the devil’s public,

longstanding, and meticulously

logged disdain for the health

and wholeness of his wife, the devil

spends all day, every day, insisting

grandly and gleefully on his general

pro-woman ethos, that the devil truly

considers himself to be an unswayed

crusader: effortlessly magnetic,

scrupulous, gracious, and, in spite of

the devil’s several advanced degrees,

a luminous autodidact. Some people

say calm down; this is commonplace.

Some people say calm down;

this is very rare. Some people say

the sun is washing her face. Some

people say in Hell, they’re having a fair.

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Natalie Shapero is the author, most recently, of the poetry collection Popular Longing. 

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             The Devil Beating His Wife, photograph by Brian Wallace, taken in Pasadena, Maryland

 

Comments

[Michael Mark]

I know those some people who say very well. This poem’s diction is fearless. Brava!

[Clarinda]

Read this right after live-streaming palm
Sunday mass. Amazing juxtaposition. Wow.

[Bill Nevins]

"Some people say

the sun is washing her face. Some

people say in Hell, they’re having a fair."
Stunning close to a brilliant poem!
Thanks for sharing!

[lally]

this is now one of my all-time favorite poems

[Joan Retallackj]

The fact of global misogyny requires poets courageous enough to shed the light of their brilliance -- as poets -- on the abuse of girls and women. I thank Natalie Shapiro for this brilliant poem, and Terence Winch for publishing it as curator of "pick of the week."

[Beth Joselow]

Some say Natalie Shapero has captured the devil in our time, in her unique and brilliant way.

[Terence Winch]

Thanks for that comment, Joan.

[Grace Cavalieri]

There's no end to saying an old problem in a sparkling new way. Thanks to Natalie.

[Don Berger]

I love this poem's cumulative power, how it just keeps rolling urgently along with ever longer sentences, songfully. And what a fabulous surprise appearance of the sun as the poem closes, and then that last just as quick and pleasing turn to the devil's hell.

[Denise Duhamel]

Terrific poem about misogynist doublespeak! Natalie is powerful talent!!

[David Schloss]

From what I've seen of her work, Natalie Shapero is a force to be reckoned with.