Description
Book SynopsisBased on the author’s life as a gay man and a poet, King of Shadows is a collection of twenty-one autobiographical essays that circle in and around San Francisco since the 1960s. The three longest pieces deal with Aaron Shurin’s coming into poetry and gay identity via a high school production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, his deep relationships with poets Denise Levertov and Robert Duncan, and his personal history of venturing into San Francisco gay bars, starting in 1965 and ending just before Stonewall.
Aaron Shurin is the author of fifteen books, including Involuntary Lyrics and The Paradise of Forms, named a Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year.
Trade ReviewPraise for The Paradise of Forms: Selected Poems " . . . it delightfully explores a melange of containers, frames, and matrices through which a poem can come to life." -- Publishers Weekly "Mr. Shurin is the Marianne Faithfull of avant-garde poetry. He's been working hard for years and known only to a small devoted readership. This book, though, collects pieces from over his career, and they sparkle and shine with wit and with true grace. He is one of a vivacious group
