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AUDIO TRANSCRIPT

Poetry Off the Shelf: My Totally Normal Crisis

(MUSIC PLAYING)

Helena de Groot:  This is Poetry Off the Shelf. I’m Helena de Groot. Today, My Totally Normal Crisis. Natalie Shapero is very private. There’s almost nothing about her life online. So, most of what I know about her, I got from the poems. For instance, Natalie Shapero is the queen of line breaks. She’ll break at just the right moment, like a detective in a noir movie who takes a long drag of his cigarette before finishing his sentence of who did it. She’s also intensely funny. “A bird screams out my window,” she writes, “like an alarm I have / set to notify me when a bird is there.” Though most of her lines are a lot darker than that. “Wars are like children—,” she writes, “you create one, offer scant / effort, then call it botched as the years / accrue, go off and make / a new one with somebody else.” In her latest collection, titled Popular Longing, she investigates, let’s just say, the human heart under late-stage capitalism. For instance, the ways in which we politely fold away our grief so as not to bother the people in charge: our boss, our landlord, the generous donor who supports the arts. But knowing the taint of money doesn’t make us need it less. So how to get it? There’s any number of ways, from gainful employment to a life of crime. But Natalie Shapero found a more original route.

Helena de Groot: I saw that you were a contestant on Wheel of Fortune.

Natalie Shapero: That’s right.

Helena de Groot: Can you just tell me, like, how did that happen?

Natalie Shapero: Yeah, I mean, I—(LAUGHS) so, I mean, there are a few different ways, I guess, to tell that story. But when we moved to L.A., I wanted to try to get on TV. (LAUGHS)

Helena de Groot: (LAUGHS)

Natalie Shapero: I felt that it was in the spirit of moving to L.A., and I thought it would be an interesting thing to do. My family and I had watched a lot of Wheel of Fortune in the early part of COVID because our child was home from kindergarten, and we thought it would be a good way for her to think about letters and letter sounds and letter combinations. (LAUGHS) And, you know, it’s very sparkly.

Helena de Groot: (LAUGHS)

Natalie Shapero: And I had, like many people, I had a lot of memories of watching it with my grandparents. This was something that I learned from being on the show, is that many people who are on the show watched it with their grandparents. So it was just like sort of one of our pandemic traditions that we started. And like, the actual process of applying kind of started as something fun that I was trying to do for, like, almost to entertain my kid and her friends. Because you have to make a little video of yourself being very enthusiastic, and the kids, they helped me film it. And you know, they were there and everything. But I just wanted to like,—and this is something that kind of has been ongoing in my life at this time and maybe in the, maybe in the lives of a lot of people, like, following the past few years that we have all had, but just trying to have different experiences that are intense in different ways and in some ways, like, it’s not that intense to go on like a very routinized and I’m sure focus-grouped television show,

Helena de Groot: (LAUGHS)

Natalie Shapero: but it just, it wasn’t an experience that I had had before. I also, like, since moving to L.A., I have been trying to do things that I couldn’t do if I wasn’t in L.A., I guess, to try to feel the feeling of the place. And I did have this, depending on how you look at it, unpredictable or predictable experience of spending like a bunch of years writing this book that’s very much about, like, mythologies of California in different ways. And that was conceptualized when I was in L.A. before, just spending time with friends who lived out here. You know, and during the part of COVID when all arts events were remote, I was doing these performances of a book where I was wearing all of these clothes that said “California” all at the same time,

Helena de Groot: (LAUGHS)

Natalie Shapero: and then taking one off and having another California shirt on underneath, and taking that off and having another California shirt. And so I felt like I had done all of these sort of screen performances of California in my previous iteration of my life in New England. And then I was like, I’m going to come here and I’m going to do a screen performance of California in California by being on a television show that feels very, very L.A..

Helena de Groot: And then even if you’re, like, doing this kind of because it’s silly and entertaining and why not, that California, I can imagine that just being there, that it has its own momentum, you know, because they take their job seriously, right? And so at what point did something different kick in? Like did it ever stop being sort of a joke or like, you know, what happened when you were actually there?

Natalie Shapero: Oh, yeah, that’s a great question. So, I mean, it’s incredibly impressive to actually be there and to see a, I mean, I think film and TV production, the little that I’ve seen of it, it’s very impressive. People are doing extremely high-level work extremely well, and also working together. And for many of us who do creative work alone, it’s always cool to see people doing something as a team. And it’s a different kind of energy and it’s a different kind of aptitude, I guess, that you have to have to do it. And they’re also doing so many things at once. And like, while you’re getting sort of like your hair done and your makeup done so you can be on TV, there are also people who are just buzzing around all the time being like, “Think about what letters go next to each other: Bl, Cl, and, and that’s like, that’s the other thing that I thought was very interesting and impressive is, it’s very disorienting for people who have never been on TV to suddenly be on a game show. And they do such a good job at constantly just reminding you that you’re on a game show and what you’re supposed to be doing and that you’re supposed to be guessing words, like sort of accommodating for people, like, freaking out or going blank, which must happen, like, all the time. Yeah, like it was, like it was very interesting. I actually am, like, I am trying to write something about it. TBD.

Helena de Groot: That’s cool. (LAUGHS)

Natalie Shapero: (LAUGHS) Yeah.

Helena de Groot: And did you have one of those, like, brain farts or stage fright? Were you hit by something that kind of paralyzed you a little or scared you?

Natalie Shapero: I mean, I felt personally confused by the experience, just because it moves very fast and I wasn’t accustomed to it. I did, I won the show.

Yeah! (LAUGHS)

Which was, like, also very confusing. (LAUGHS) I really was like, it was like one of these things where I was like, it happened so fast, I don’t even really know what’s going on exactly. So it was like, it was weird to watch it on TV, because I was like, I don’t really have any, not that I don’t have a memory of it, but (LAUGHS) the whole thing felt surprising. I was like, I remember just being confused at all of these points.

Helena de Groot: Totally, and that your hands were sweaty or something like that.

Natalie Shapero: Yeah. (LAUGHS)

Helena de Groot: Yeah. (LAUGHS) And again, I don’t know how much you want to say about it, but you did win a little over $50,000,

Natalie Shapero: Yeah.

Helena de Groot: which like, yeah, I don’t even know, like, first silly question, is this money taxed?

Natalie Shapero: Yeah, yeah.

Helena de Groot: Or is the whole thing yours.

Natalie Shapero: Yeah. No, I mean, I got it this year, so I haven’t actually, like, done my taxes. I assume it’s like between 30% and 50% depending on how it gets taxed. I gotta figure it out.

Helena de Groot: Right, right, right. Okay. Right. So then it’s a little slightly less spectacular, but still, still nice.

Natalie Shapero: It’s still huge, yeah. I thought it was pretty enormous.

Helena de Groot: Especially in the poetry business.

Natalie Shapero: Yeah.

Helena de Groot: Yeah, exactly. What did that do for your life? What is something that’s now possible because of it?

Natalie Shapero: We’re trying to figure that out. Yeah. Yeah, I don’t, I honestly, I don’t know. We’re trying to figure it out. But, you know, something that I am trying to write about it a little bit is that to, I think to get on a game show, you know, because it’s a pretty extensive audition process. And to get on a game show, it’s kind of clear while you’re in that process that it’s helpful to have a concrete thing that you say you want to buy with money. That’s something that is fun.

Helena de Groot: Mm.

Natalie Shapero: And I don’t know this for sure, but it’s something that I sensed, at least, through the process, that they’re more likely maybe, and I don’t think this is just Wheel of Fortune, I think this is probably like every game show that’s supposed to be fun, and, you know, it’s about selling products that are advertised on the show and stuff, you know, it feels like they’re more likely to be interested in contestants who have a specific purchase that is a leisure item.

Helena de Groot: Right. And not like, “I’m going to insulate my roof” or something.

Natalie Shapero: Right. Right. Or like, I’m going to pay off my, you know, hand injury from 15 years or whatever.

Helena de Groot: Yeah.

Natalie Shapero: But I mean, the reality, obviously, of the economy is that most people are just going to use money to like, pay bills and stuff. And I certainly got that feeling, you know, when you meet the other contestants, right, because they film five shows in a single day, and then there are alternates there also. So there are 17 people at once who are kind of like the cohort of people being on Wheel of Fortune that day or potentially being on Wheel of Fortune. And it’s not like we’re like a bunch of millionaires or whatever.

Helena de Groot: Yeah, yeah.

Natalie Shapero: But so I think there is some kind of like disjunct between the outward performance of like, “I’m going to do something really fun with this money,” and like the economic reality of, like, probably everyone’s just kind of like, pay for necessities. (LAUGHS)

Helena de Groot: So what was the thing that you came up with? Like, “Oh, I’ll spend it on this one thing.”

Natalie Shapero: Big vacation.

Helena de Groot: Okay, great. (LAUGHS)

Natalie Shapero: Yeah. And I actually did win a big vacation. (LAUGHING) Which I am going to go on.

Helena de Groot: Ooo! So you get to go on the big vacation and then spend your money on insulating your roof. That’s great. Or paying off your hand injury. Well, I find it so interesting, you know, to hear you talk about the money aspects, because you write so much about the logic of the market that is completely impregnated every last bit, it seems, of society. Definitely not excluding the art world, right? And I can imagine as a poet, you don’t really go into poetry thinking of making money or, you know, and then you discover that this world is actually awash in money, you know, often made in industries like pharmaceuticals or mining or oil or, you know, whatever. And yeah, Poetry Foundation included, of course. They got their endowment from the heir of a pharmaceutical magnate.

Natalie Shapero: Sure.

Helena de Groot: And you know, you write like, for instance, you write in one of your poems about the ways in which we kind of wash those sins away because of philanthropy, right?

Natalie Shapero: Sure.

Helena de Groot: You write, “The river is heavy with phosphorus and scum. / It causes liver damage if ingested. / I don’t know exactly whose runoff it is, but so long / as they’re … donating sizable / sums to the ballet, I take no issue. River’s yours.” Which is very funny and very sad and very true, and, you know, like so many of your poems. And I’m wondering, like, you know, do you feel in you that this reality of being an artist in the art world where money has that weird way of influencing people’s behavior, do you feel like it changes you also?

Natalie Shapero: That’s a great question. And yeah. Yes, I mean, I think that a lot of my most recent book is absolutely about, kind of underpinned by the ways in which I have behaved differently to try to get money from people who had it. Just this idea of inhabiting like a posture of subordination and a posture of gratitude and sort of sucking up, I guess. And it’s something that I am I’m very interested in.

Helena de Groot: Yeah. And like, you know, when do you feel like for you, you woke up to that reality of, “Oh, there’s a whole lot of money, and I am clearly, in a way, dancing to its tune,” even though, you know, probably that’s not what you want to do.

Natalie Shapero: It’s a good question. I mean, I think, you know, not to, like, go to like the most bird’s eye view, but I think that’s, you know, like part of the realities of capitalism and like, you notice that in your first job or whatever.

Helena de Groot: Yeah.

Natalie Shapero: I think I always have been interested in ways of behaving at work. Like the idea of like, the performance of being an employee and the performance of being at work. Yeah, I don’t know. Like there have been times in my life when it’s become more acute for me. You know, while I was writing this book, you know, my family and I were renting a house where we lived in Boston. It was a very competitive, like, rental market or whatever. And, you know, especially when we first moved there, we were just like, we didn’t know really how to afford it, I guess. So we made a deal with our landlords who live next door where we would babysit for their child in exchange for a rent break. So I think a lot of this book came out of some combination of working in a new job, trying to figure it out, like, having a new home where also, like, we were kind of at work because we did this domestic work for the people with whom we shared a house. And, you know, I was also involved at the time my child was in the school district, and they were having a lot of labor issues and really underpaying, especially their paraprofessionals, who are like the teacher’s assistants. And so just the city in which we lived was like one of these cities where their image of themselves was like, “We’re like a bastion of progressivism.” And then you would go to the city council meetings, and there are city employees who are like, you know, I make $15,000 a year to get like, bit and kicked by dysregulated toddlers who are probably dysregulated because their families are in precarious housing and employment situations. And so that’s really where—the book really came out of that, the site of all of that.

Helena de Groot: Yeah. That’s I think what is so moving and arresting about your collection is that yes, you talk about all these bird’s eye view issues that I think a lot of us are thinking about, you know, like the ways in which capitalism shapes our society. But you do it by focusing on such an intimate level. Kind of babysitting in exchange for a rent break. It’s so intimate, right,

Natalie Shapero: Sure.

Helena de Groot: that like, now you have your landlords scared and they need to go to the bathroom and like, what does it mean if you love that kid, you know, like if you start really liking that kid and, you know, stuff like that. And yeah, I was just wondering, because I know that you read a lot and I think your husband is also a professor and teaches about like, you know, the philosophy of neoliberalism.

Natalie Shapero: Oh my God, how did, that’s, how did you find that information? (LAUGHS)

Helena de Groot: (LAUGHS) I’m sorry,

Natalie Shapero: I’m so curious! No, no, it’s fine. I’m like, (LAUGHING) I want to know. I mean, I’m always scouring the Internet and I love another Internet scourer.

Helena de Groot: Okay, let me see. In the acknowledgments of Hard Child, your previous collection, there was mention of Ricky, and I can’t remember what the sentence was, but I figured out that that was your partner.

Natalie Shapero: Sure.

Helena de Groot: And then I Googled your full name + Ricky.

Natalie Shapero: Nice.

Helena de Groot: And then I came on the Wheel of Fortune thing, actually.

Natalie Shapero: (LAUGHS) Oh, God.

Helena de Groot: That was the only thing that came up, because it was mentioned that he was there to, like, you know, whatever, celebrate you or something, you know.

Natalie Shapero: Nice.

Helena de Groot: And of course, I Googled him and I saw that he’s a professor.

Natalie Shapero: Nice. Well done. (LAUGHS)

Helena de Groot: (LAUGHS) But so, you know, I was thinking about that, like, you’re reading a lot of, you know, theory and people who really write, like, academic tomes on, you know, yeah, the way that our contemporary society is structured along the lines of, you know, professionalism and all that. And I imagine that with your husband, you know, those topics filter into your conversations, but in your poems you make it so concrete. You make it so—you bring it down to the level of the, yeah, the most intimate often. And I wonder how you do that.

Natalie Shapero: Yeah, that’s a good question and not one I’ve really specifically thought about before. In some ways, it doesn’t feel like a risk to get lost in the intellectual backdrop or whatever, because I do sort of read a lot of theory and read a lot of history and cultural criticism. But my writing process always starts with something that feels really intense, I guess? I don’t know, I’m a pretty extensive reader and researcher and note taker, but that stuff doesn’t come into the poems until, like, stage two, I guess. Like, stage one is always like this thing that happened two weeks ago feels enduring. I mean, in some ways I guess that’s like my first question is like, what am I—(LAUGHS) what am I feeling the most feelings about, and what has endurance? And then I’m interested in sort of like, why did this feel so strongly? And then I think I will go from there to try to understand it, like, situated in a larger context, but, I mean, I could like sort of say something annoying, like (IN AFFECTED VOICE) specificity is the soul of narrative.

Helena de Groot: (LAUGHS)

Natalie Shapero: (LAUGHS) But I think, you know, it’s, that’s not a bad maxim, if you have to have one.

Helena de Groot: Yeah. It’s not because it’s a total cliché, but it isn’t not true.

Natalie Shapero: Yeah.

Helena de Groot: Yeah. Yeah. I’m just going to, you know, what you were saying before about how your first job and sort of this pose that you’re forced into almost automatically, you know, how that woke you up to how pervasive this money thinking is. But I’m just going to that poem “Green”

Natalie Shapero: Yeah.

Helena de Groot: because that’s really, you know, seems like about that.

Natalie Shapero: Yeah.

Helena de Groot: And I was wondering if you wanted to read it.

Natalie Shapero: Sure. Yeah.

Helena de Groot: On page 21.

Natalie Shapero: Wow, you do have all the information.

Helena de Groot: (LAUGHS)

Natalie Shapero: (LAUGHS) Sure.

(READS POEM)

Green

I saw an image of Cleopatra being delivered

to Caesar in a rolled-up rug, just falling

from the rug, and at work I began to be worried

that others, and especially those in supervisory roles,

viewed me as green. Temperamentally inexpert.

I tried wearing crisper shirts, but it didn’t help.

So of course when all my friends began

to die, I found at last a means of proving

myself through inattention to their passing.

I refrained from sharing remembrances,

that time we pulled B’s ruined tooth

or when L and I hiked out to the obverse

side of the Hollywood sign. When colleagues

sought to console me, I offered only the stoic

rejoinder DEATH IS A PART OF LIFE.

I underwent my yearly performance assessment

and was prompted to name a task at which

I excelled. I responded TRULY KNOWING

THAT DEATH IS A PART OF LIFE, and when

they requested I then articulate a plan

for the coming year, I said, SPEAKING LOUDER

WHEN STATING THAT DEATH IS A PART OF LIFE,

AND PERHAPS APPENDING AN AMPLIFYING

GESTURE. I returned to my desk and removed

my heels and capped my pen and called B’s mom

and told her about the tooth. She recounted

for me his younger years, mud covered or up to his

shoulders in the cold ocean. She said he had been

ready to die, that through his suffering he’d sworn it

several times. Though also he’d said several

times that he wasn’t ready. It was tough to know.

Helena de Groot: Thank you. Your poems are really—they do damage. I just want you to know that, you know? They are so funny and they open you up, and then when you’re, like, nice and open, you just go in for the kill.

Natalie Shapero: No, that means a lot, thanks. (LAUGHS)

Helena de Groot: (LAUGHS) Yeah. You know, as far as compliments go, I don’t know if that was the best job that I did at that.

Natalie Shapero: (LAUGHING) That’s a great, no, that’s how I want them to be read, really, I was completely serious.

Helena de Groot: (LAUGHING) Yeah, well, yeah, mine too. I mean, it’s just, throughout, it just, things keep hitting you, and especially because you have such a casual way, like you really capture so well the ways in which we speak. You know, you move from that kind of, Oh, you know, I’m afraid they viewed me as green at work, you know, “I tried wearing crisper shirts,” “didn’t help.” And then you move sort of seamlessly into, “So of course when all my friends began / to die, I found at last a means of proving / myself through inattention to their passing.” Yeah, even that sentence is sort of inattentive to their passing, right, because you have the comma just like, “So of course, when they all began to die,” comma, you know, and so on, yeah. And then it keeps going with the slight absurdist take of you know, “my performance assessment / I was prompted to name a task at which / I excelled. I responded, truly knowing / that death is a part of life.” I mean, it’s so funny, I just imagine that you would really put this, that would be fantastic.

Natalie Shapero: (LAUGHS)

Helena de Groot: I mean, you might have, I don’t know you.

Natalie Shapero: (LAUGHS) Well, you know, I mean, I’ll tell you that, you know, I submitted this book to my employer when I was being reviewed for my job because I’m a poetry professor.

Helena de Groot: Wow.

Natalie Shapero: So, in some ways, I did really put that.

Helena de Groot: Oh, my, that is amazing, well, okay. I guess you just again, like, you know, rose a few ranks in my esteem. Yeah, and then that end is just, it was really hard to take, you know, like, “I returned to my desk and removed / my heels and cap my pen and called B’s mom.” Earlier in the poem, you mention B, you know, one of the friends who died. “I refrained from sharing remembrances, that time we pulled B’s ruined tooth.” So, yeah, the narrator calls B’s mom and tells her about the tooth. “She recounted / for me his younger years, mud covered or up to his / shoulders in the cold ocean. She said he had been / ready to die, that through his suffering he’d sworn it / several times. Though also, he’d said several / times that he wasn’t ready. It was tough to know.” And I just kept noticing across your work, not just in this collection, that death keeps creeping into your poems. And the ways in which it sort of stands almost at a, at an odd angle with like everything else, all the striving, all the, you know, the, the trying to make money, trying to wear crisp shirts so that you’re taken seriously, like all of that. And then it’s always like, kind of interrupted by death. And also the authenticity of it. Sorry, I’m just saying so many things. There’s no question yet. I will get there. Yeah. Like so many of your poems also interrogate what is real. Like, what do we really feel? Can we even know what we really feel? And so, yeah, you sort of saying like, “She said he had been / ready to die, that through his suffering he’d sworn it / several times. Though also, he’d said several / times that he wasn’t ready. It was tough to know.” I’m just curious about, like, your process as you’re writing about both, like, capitalism and sort of how that makes everything a little bit fake and then truth, whether that’s the truth of our mortality or the truth of your own feelings or the truth about capitalism. You know? I just wonder, like, how you peel back the layers in yourself. How is that process, you know? Like, how do you, how do you hold yourself to account, to be as honest as you can be and then more honest still? How does that go?

Natalie Shapero: Yeah, I mean, I think that something that I have done to skirt all of (LAUGHING) all of these things that you’re talking about is really sort of develop, at least for a while, like a, at first implicit and then explicit artistic practice of being like, I write from a phony perspective or like a phony posture. Like, I write about these situations where you can’t, you know, because of various kinds of like vulnerability or precarity or taboo, you can’t articulate the truth.

Helena de Groot: Mm.

Natalie Shapero: And so my poems are like, what do you say instead at that moment? And, you know, I think that I developed that practice in part because it was an intellectual interest, but also in part because I have trouble saying things that are earnest. (LAUGHS) And I’m a very private person, and it’s hard for me to talk about how I really feel. And I, you know, like I think I have become interested or I became interested in, like, looking at like, moments of sort of deflecting things or like making a joke instead of saying what’s really happening and trying to get things through subtext. And then like looking at all of these different kinds of sites of disempowerment where, you know, you’re going to be fucked if you say what’s actually going on.

Helena de Groot: Mm-hmm.

Natalie Shapero: So, subtext is your language.

Helena de Groot: Right. Like at work, you can indeed not show the full extent of your grief over the death of your friends.

Natalie Shapero: Sure. Yeah. Yeah. And that’s like a lot of the question of this poem and a lot of the question of this book is like, where does, like, the intensity of feeling that can’t, you know, that like, has no quarter at work, like, where does it go if it doesn’t kind of go there? And, you know, I think that the fixation on death is in part kind of about it being inescapable or ubiquitous truth of existence, but also, you know, just like about the ways in which capitalism is a cult of death. And so many of the structures are driving us toward that. So that, so I guess an interest of mine is making explicit like, the kind of capitalist paradigms in which death is tacit but, like, omnipresent.

Helena de Groot: Yeah. And I think that’s also one of the most insidious things about capitalism, is that it gives the illusion of freedom. Like, nobody is telling me what to do or what to say, but you just are policing yourself the whole time. Like at work, you know, you don’t have to be told, that you cannot show your grief openly. And I’m wondering, you know, like sometimes when we police ourselves, it becomes very hard to distinguish sort of the voice of capitalism, whatever that is, from our own voice. And I’m wondering, when did you see that it was actually not you doing that? Because I think, like, sometimes when things are not societally okay, we also end up thinking that they’re not okay.

Natalie Shapero: Sure. Sure.

Helena de Groot: Often people can’t even cry in public, right? Like it becomes physically impossible.

Natalie Shapero: That’s never been my problem, I’ll just say.

Helena de Groot: (LAUGHS) Mine neither. But I’ve heard.

Natalie Shapero: (LAUGHS)

Helena de Groot: Yeah. I don’t know if I phrase my question, like, clearly, I just wonder, like, because so much of your collection is about estrangement from yourself.

Natalie Shapero: Sure.

Helena de Groot: Like, how did you know what you wanted to do at work and what was imposed on you?

Natalie Shapero: Yeah, it’s a good question. You know, to me it is, you know, sort of like self-silencing in a variety of different contexts. Like not just the employment context, but like, you know, like a lot of my earlier work is about violence. You know, that’s like a learned behavior, I guess, from sort of a collective failure to know how to respond to things. And I have struggled with it on the other side, too. Like, you know, like someone’s telling me something that I don’t know how to respond to. And then I’m doing like a shitty job of, like, holding space for what they’re saying. And then maybe the next time they talk to someone, they are not going to talk about that because they’re not, like, getting the feedback that this is an okay thing to talk about. And, you know, I think that like, those questions are, you know, they come up for many of us, like, very frequently. I think when you work in the creative writing classroom, like that’s something that you, like, that’s on your mind all the time, right, is like, how are we receiving stories that people are telling? And you see like all day, you see people reacting to one another’s stories and trying to understand like, what are the very specific ways that you can tell a story that will get it to get through?

Helena de Groot: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Natalie Shapero: And which elements like, do you hold back, because sometimes it’s just too much. Or like, people like stories when you tell them in a way that’s funny or that is disarming and that gets a better response. And so, like, you know, in my work, I’m like, I focus a lot on those moments where someone is trying to tell a story and the recipient is not receiving it. But in my actual life, you know, I don’t, obviously, I don’t want to have those moments, so like, I think it’s an ongoing struggle or problem or puzzle, both how to do the best job at being honest and straightforward about like what’s going on with me and also how to do the best job of being open and compassionate with other people who are trying to tell me something.

Helena de Groot: Yeah, yeah. And it’s interesting as you’re talking about, like, you know, working in the field of, you know, telling stories and you’re always reading other people’s stories and kind of noticing what passes and what doesn’t, like what gets through to people and what doesn’t, you know, that one of the sort of cold, hard truths that you’ve noticed is like, oh, humor seems to help, you know, get the thing through to people. They want to listen when you’re funny. And your poems are really, really funny. And I wonder, like, what, how you use humor without feeling like you’re doing the cold, calculated thing that is, you know, sort of efficient marketing almost. You know what I mean? Where you’re like, this will get the message seen and heard, you know? How do you keep it real?

Natalie Shapero: You know, in some ways it’s just been like an interesting kind of like creative puzzle to, like, see what you can put in there that people will laugh at. And I have had almost like, challenges for myself to, like, try to—okay, well, so I’ll tell you, like, the very brief evolution of this …

Helena de Groot: Please.

Natalie Shapero: technique.

Helena de Groot: (LAUGHS)

Natalie Shapero: So I had a poem in my first book that the first part of the poem has some like really silly jokes in it, just like real goofy stuff. And then the second part of the poem is heavy. And I found when I would do readings, because it was my first book, I hadn’t really done readings before and like, I hadn’t really thought about how much humor is like a signal to people of like how they’re going to, like, react. However you open the poem—you open the poem with rhyme, they’re going to think it’s going to rhyme the whole time.

Helena de Groot: Mm-hmm.

Natalie Shapero: So people would laugh through the whole poem. (LAUGHS) Like they would laugh at the silly parts and then they would laugh at the second part, which was, like, not a joke. And at first I was like, “This is very upsetting.”

Helena de Groot: Yeah.

Natalie Shapero: I don’t enjoy it. But I also have a, just like a horror of giving, like, directives to the audience on how to respond. Like, I didn’t want to start it being like, “My next poem is funny in the beginning and then it’s not funny.” (LAUGHS)

Helena de Groot: Yeah.

Natalie Shapero: And I also think if you tell people that something isn’t funny, then it better be really serious. Like, you’re raising the bar on yourself. (LAUGHS)

Helena de Groot: (LAUGHS) Most things are funny when you insist they are.

Natalie Shapero: Right, right.

Helena de Groot: They take on that edge. (LAUGHS)

Natalie Shapero: (LAUGHING) Right. So, I mean, then I, I kind of became interested in that moment eventually and was like, I just want to try to write jokes that are unpleasant to laugh at.

Helena de Groot: Yeah.

Natalie Shapero: Like, and I almost like, I want to see, like, what I can get people to laugh at that, like, feels gross or bad or whatever.

Helena de Groot: Yeah.

Natalie Shapero: And I think part of it is just like an interest in the extreme in some ways. Like which I do, I do sort of have some, like, maybe everyone does, maybe people don’t, I don’t know, but like, I guess I do have like a gravitation toward things that are extreme. And that’s in part why I went on Wheel of Fortune. (LAUGHS)

Helena de Groot: (LAUGHS)

Natalie Shapero: I don’t know, I was just like, how far does this go? Like, I was just like, okay, like we’re moving to L.A., but how far does it go? Like, let’s be on TV.

Helena de Groot: What is another example of you just for the hell of it, seeing how far something goes?

Natalie Shapero: You know, I’ve been doing standup comedy.

Helena de Groot: Ohh.

Natalie Shapero: And those environments are very extreme. And especially after spending a lot of time in, like, poetry land, which I think can be very genteel. And very positive. I think poetry is a very, like, there’s a lot of ethos about, like, community support. And like when you go into standup, everyone’s like, “You suck!” (LAUGHS) you know?

Helena de Groot: (LAUGHS) I mean, it’s interesting, you know, because now I really want to know, like, if intensity is in a way what you’re after, what is your relationship to risk?

Natalie Shapero: Yeah. I mean, I guess in some ways I feel like I, I have a high tolerance for risk and also like, a low tolerance. Like, I’m not like, you know,

Helena de Groot: Bungee jumping.

Natalie Shapero: Right, right, right. Yeah.

Helena de Groot: Yeah.

Natalie Shapero: Always wear a bicycle helmet. Everyone should.

Helena de Groot: (LAUGHS)

Natalie Shapero: (LAUGHS) But yeah, I mean, I am trying to—like I, so I feel that poetry, for me, at least, has been an avoidance of risk, right? Because I have like a lot of hang ups about disclosure. Like I’m very private and some of it’s ideological and like, some of it’s like distrust of, like, misuse of information and blah, blah, blah. And like, you, you can scour the Internet all you like, you won’t find a picture of my kid!

Helena de Groot: (LAUGHS)

Natalie Shapero: (LAUGHS) But, you know, I guess some of it is like sort of the stuff we were talking about earlier, like distrust of openness after, like, trying it and having it not go well or whatever. And poetry is so elliptical and it’s so, like, obscure and it’s also so unpopular that it’s a great medium for someone who feels that way, because you can put anything in there. And I wrote this whole book that’s like about, like, having an antagonistic relationship with my job.

Helena de Groot: Yeah.

Natalie Shapero: And like, my job was like, you know, “What have you done lately?” And I was like, “Oh, I wrote this book.” And they’re like, “Very good.” (LAUGHS)

Helena de Groot: (LAUGHS)

Natalie Shapero: (LAUGHING) You know, they don’t read it. You know, I’m not going to lie, on balance, the whole thing is a little bit unsatisfying. (LAUGHS)

Helena de Groot: (LAUGHS)

Natalie Shapero: So I am trying, I guess, to write something that is more, that is more straight forward. And that feels like a risk, I guess. And I think that like, in some ways, I do feel like general current of like “Fuck it” that’s emerged from sort of COVID. And so, in some ways, I’m like, this is the time to dial into that.

Helena de Groot: Yeah.

Natalie Shapero: But that like, it feels like it’s appealing, but it’s also scary and the scariness is appealing and,

Helena de Groot: Mm-hmm.

Natalie Shapero: So I guess I like, I think I have historically maybe been intolerant to creative risks in that way. And now I feel like now it’s the time. Also, I’m like having like a midlife crisis maybe? I don’t know.

Helena de Groot: You think?

Natalie Shapero: Well, I mean, I don’t know.

Helena de Groot: Because you’re how old now?

Natalie Shapero: I’m 40. You know what this is actually, I’m just realizing this right now. Like, I think I have been feeling a feeling of crisis. And then when I turn, like, the minute I turned 40, I was like, “Thank God, now I’m middle aged. I can have a midlife crisis. That’s an accepted thing.”

Helena de Groot: I am normal! Whew! (LAUGHS)

Natalie Shapero: (LAUGHS) This been very helpful. Thank you.

Helena de Groot: (LAUGHS) How does that show up? Your midlife crisis?

Natalie Shapero: Well, I mean, I am like, it’s nothing spectacular, but I am trying to do different kind of like creative and performance things that I haven’t really done before and just take risks and like, push stuff in that way.

Helena de Groot: Yeah

Natalie Shapero: Yeah.

(MUSIC PLAYING)

Helena de Groot: Because that’s also one of the things that I saw in many of the poems that are about death across your collections, is also this kind of banging yourself and the reader over the head with this idea like, “Oh, well, but we’re alive right now. You know, don’t forget, we might as well do something with it,” you know? And so in a way, like, even though it’s often really hard to take your poems that are about death, they feel really life affirming, too, many of them. Like, what do you think makes you want to really live?

Natalie Shapero: I mean, I believe in life. I do, like, I believe in, like, not in an anti-abortion way, but, like, in, I believe in the validity of all the living creatures on this earth. And I think they’re, you know, I mean, like, sometimes I feel like I have a hard time accessing, like, exuberance or joyfulness or whatever. Like, I have kind of like a, I can have kind of like a down disposition. Yeah. I mean, it’s, I mean, this is a really interesting question. I don’t have a religious practice. Like, I don’t really think of myself as a spiritual person, but I, I feel and believe a lot of things. And like, probably the number one thing that I, like, feel and believe is like the force of life.

Helena de Groot: Yeah. Do you want to read one last poem. A poem, actually, from Hard Child. Did you bring that?

Natalie Shapero: I did.

Helena de Groot: Okay, great. It’s on page 11, “Not Horses.”

Natalie Shapero:

(READS POEM)

Not Horses

What I adore is not horses, with their modern

domestic life span of 25 years. What I adore

is a bug that lives only one day, especially if

it’s a terrible day, a day of train derailment or

chemical lake or cop admits to cover-up, a day

when no one thinks of anything else, least of all

that bug. I know how it feels, born as I’ve been

into these rotting times, as into sin. Everybody’s

busy, so distraught they forget to kill me,

and even that won’t keep me alive. I share

my home not with horses, but with a little dog

who sees poorly at dusk and menaces stumps,

makes her muscle known to every statue.

I wish she could have a single day of language,

so that I might reassure her don’t be afraid—

our whole world is dead and so can do you no harm.

(MUSIC PLAYING)

Helena de Groot: Natalie Shapero is the author of three poetry collections: No Object, winner of the 2014 Great Lakes College Association New Writers Award, Hard Child, shortlisted for the 2018 International Griffin Poetry Prize, and her latest, Popular Longing. Her awards include fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Ruth Lilly Foundation, and the Kenyon Review, and she teaches writing at the University of California Irvine. To find out more, check out the Poetry Foundation website. The music in this episode is by Todd Sickafoose. I’m Helena de Groot, and this was Poetry Off the Shelf. Thank you for listening.