Stupid Hope - by Jason Shinder (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

The final collection by the late Jason Shinder, "one of the finest of our new poets" (Gerald Stern)

I close my eyes and try to remember
when I was unopposed, when I started to die,
buoyant, fragrant, shuddering with love.
--from "Before"

Jason Shinder's last poems are his moving testimonies to poetry, love, and friendship. With power, clarity, and disarming humor, the poems confront grief and mortality with a humility and fortitude that come only "with hope, stupid hope." Stupid Hope is Shinder's wry, penetrating, and wise farewell.

Review Quotes

"A wonderful strange humor and deep wisdom--what we need." --Allen Ginsberg on Jason Shinder

"Jason Shinder's second book of poems, the lovely and tortuous Among Women, forges a new place in the tradition of the journeying soul. Shinder . . . possesses a subtle, idiosyncratic, and revolutionary voice." --Provincetown Arts

About the Author

Jason Shinder (1955-2008) was the author of two previous poetry collections and the editor of The Poem That Changed America: "Howl" Fifty Years Later. He directed the YMCA National Writer's Voice and taught at the Writing Seminars at Bennington College.