Aaron Shurin is an author whose work delves into profound human themes and formal experimentation. His poetry and prose are known for their intellectual depth and distinctive style. Shurin focuses on exploring interpersonal relationships and societal issues through innovative literary approaches. His writings have enriched numerous national and international anthologies, reflecting his significant place in contemporary American literature.
Urban and pastoral, highly figured and fragmented, grieving and dreaming, the prose poems of The Blue Absolute set people moving and thinking amidst a flurry of dashes, dots, perspective shifts, and the fragmented action of San Francisco, the great city on the edge.
A moving collection of essays that bring poetic insight to the sheer facts of the AIDS epidemic, in an attempt to make meaning from suffering. Unbound is a poet's intimate account of life in San Francisco in the 80s and 90s during the apex of the AIDS epidemic. In his search for meaning, Shurin dives down into the broken-hearted, revelatory core of the social landscape and the lives of friends who both succumbed to and transcended the disease. Twenty-five years after its initial publication, Unbound continues the search, resonating inescapably with the perils of our new pandemic. Shurin brings to life a familiar world tensed on the threshold of living, balanced precariously on the edges of love and friendship, family and community, rapture and mourning.