Hard Child Natalie Shapero Copper Canyon, 2017 Content Warning: (general) violence and sexual violence. Hard Child (Copper Canyon, 2017) is a collection of poetry that speaks to anxiety. This collection features poems that work along the lines of topics like birth, death, violence, and the way it all falls together being alive. These topics are not just tackled in this collection, they are swallowed whole. Natalie Shapero’s work has a tinge of comedy alongside waves of truth. Published in 2017, this book comes during a quivering age of anxiety. The world is dying and has been for quite some time. The system is broken and has been forever. There is war, violence, and anger at every inch of the planet. And your psyche still tells you to laugh and joke and make it through the day. Hard Child is that one friend who never stops joking about death to cut the tension but is riddled with catastrophizing tendencies. The title poem “Hard Child” lingers near the beginning of the book, focusing on death, from small to large scale. on the possibility of extinction and what that I was a hard child, by which I mean I was callous from the start. Even now, were I to find myself, after A grand disease or blast, among the patsy Scattering of survivors, there isn’t one human tradition I would choose to carry forward. Here, Shapero is not worried about an aftermath of extinction nor does she welcome it. She merely hints toward the idea of a restart button for humanity. Throughout the book, the conditions that she chooses not to carry forward are ones of soaked in violence. She doesn’t want to think of the past as a reference point either, as noted again in the title poem. I typically hate discussing the past and treasure the option, rare and rarer, to turn from it … Something so striking throughout this book is the tone. There is a methodical delivery to Shapero’s rhetoric, but it can come across as a passing phrase. Something that is balanced between quick-wit and turmoil. In “God Only” there is forward facing delivery and the seemingly harmful imagery slinking underneath. The wisdom is this: when bitten by a cobra, Pra to the skies the cobra is full grown. Adults will ration their stores of poison, Spit just enough to stun, while the young ones, uncontrolled, give all they’ve got. The tension happening sounds like a public service announcement about snake bits, while an explanation inter-generational aggression is displayed and dissected. Hard Child focuses on how an older generation, particularly parents, can understand their harm and not create a continuing system of harm for their offspring. As noted, Shapero doesn’t want to look towards the past as a model, she wants to entertain the idea of restarting it all. This does require looking at the past though. In “Red”, Shapero writes of how understanding the world for a child is understanding awful things. Don’t shock the baby into birth by viewing wretchedness and rape on-screen, but if you must, repeat what the suave director said on the matter of violence in his movies. THAT’S NOT BLOOD, THAT’S RED — So much of understanding comes from example and the world we have is full of the most awful examples and excuses. Shown in “Red”, there is a desire to not continue this pattern, but an admittance that it is bound to happen. Interestingly, the continuation of the examples comes from a male director. Violence is continually enacted and continually dismissed as violence by men. Shapero focuses on violence in many ways in Hard Child. Another form that is explored is the national violence enacted by countries. This is apparent in the poem “Were You Lying Then or Are You Lying Now” 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. No wonder we do so much drinking. Again, violence is put on displayed and confronted and the tone shifts to be conversational, a dreary joke. This tone runs throughout Shapero’s work and showcases her ability to use language as both sword and feather. There is a focus on violence and death through dividing lines. The focus on a nation appears again in the poem “The Easy Part Was Hard” as creating empires becomes necessary after death and violence. I shy from the chore of dying knowing God will sort us into separate heavens. I don’t want to be divided. And yes, I understand it is too much to ask, that heaven be free of that old impulse to cordon off empires, mark down who goes where. Shapero shows that death, dying, violence, and all of the wretchedness in the world has a history of repeating itself, a history of being the only path, and the continuous division of people. The lines of nation-building and creating continual violence are sharp and treacherous. Shapero’s lines are just as tactful and sharp, but there's an emotional pull and conversational tone that bleed through her work. Hard Child addresses the concerns that plague people daily but does so in a manner that you want to engage with. Hearing about violence and death are made not so bad through this collection of poems, even if it forces you to think about how the cyclical nature of this world was doom from the start. Visit Natalie Shapero's Website Visit Copper Canyon' Website

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