At heart of Shurin’s personal writing style seems to be the flux of time and memory, blended between lyrical lines. He skillfully infuses insight and intellect in discerning tropes of identity and sentiment, and how they are fashioned by internal and external factors. Within this compilation of essays we see Surin’s dual development. The first is on a personal level as a gay poet coming into himself and his poetic identity. This is observed as he traces an affinity with Oberon of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, “I could be, I would be, Oberon, King of Fairies…restless, a king of Fairies, but surrounded by the shadows of men, boys, men, their shadowy parts…” (37-38). This seemingly reflects his semi-acknowledgement and understanding to come into himself and his sexual orientation.
The second level is based more on the development of his meditations—an accumulation of biographic and literary descriptions acting as ingredients for quite a visionary “dreamscape.” This is influenced by the politically progressive 1970s that lent itself to such a renewed sense of personal and literary freedoms. Shurin presents us with such a distinct style as he laments on anxieties over his appearance before leaving to a bar, “oh, my wiry, independent, shtetl hair, my Ukrainian ribbons from my mother's side, folkloric bonnet of curls, was out of the question, way too heavily accented, ruefully unacceptable, untidy, un-Californian....” (144). These lines act as another instance of his duality: we see Shurin uncomfortable in his own skin, but also uncomfortable of his apparent misplaced appearance in Californian culture. By implementing this technique, his vignettes evocatively and provocatively grab our attention on many levels.
Of personal appeal was “Reading in Time, Reading in Place.” In it, Shurin experiments with tackling an explanation for the unique and uncanny relationship between a place and what you are reading in that place. He cites his own memory of a piece as linked to where he was and who was at the time of reading, “The mood is October. I’m contemplating my poetic practice jogged by a memory after my father’s death that rewrote history…’Thought and the form are equal in the order of time’ ” (76). In retrospect, I think Shurin’s thoughts are spot on. So much of who we are and what makes us tick are directly shaped or impacted of what we read. Conversely, whatever particular juncture we are at can also be indicative of what we choose not to read. What I appreciate most in Shurin’s writing is his candid honesty, we really get a sense of him as a person and we relate and believe what he is saying. Undoubtedly his essays capture the essence of life, pulling us with him to the center of its complexities and contradictions in a whirl wind of colorful imagery and anecdotal meditations.
Of personal appeal was “Reading in Time, Reading in Place.” In it, Shurin experiments with tackling an explanation for the unique and uncanny relationship between a place and what you are reading in that place. He cites his own memory of a piece as linked to where he was and who was at the time of reading, “The mood is October. I’m contemplating my poetic practice jogged by a memory after my father’s death that rewrote history…’Thought and the form are equal in the order of time’ ” (76). In retrospect, I think Shurin’s thoughts are spot on. So much of who we are and what makes us tick are directly shaped or impacted of what we read. Conversely, whatever particular juncture we are at can also be indicative of what we choose not to read. What I appreciate most in Shurin’s writing is his candid honesty, we really get a sense of him as a person and we relate and believe what he is saying. Undoubtedly his essays capture the essence of life, pulling us with him to the center of its complexities and contradictions in a whirl wind of colorful imagery and anecdotal meditations.
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