Stay Dead
Stay Dead by Natalie Shapero, published by Copper Canyon Press in 2025, is a thought-provoking poetry collection that delves into themes of performance, power, and despair. This edition, comprising 104 pages, presents Shapero’s exploration of method acting and abstract expressionism, examining the intersection of comedy and tragedy through her unflinching verse.
In Stay Dead, readers will encounter a range of topics, including the politics of labor and the complexities of survival in contemporary society. Shapero’s poems feature notable figures such as Claude Monet and Anthony Bourdain, as she investigates the commodification of intense expression and the impact of artists’ material conditions on their work. With a sardonic tone, the collection poses critical questions about the nature of artistic identity and the societal structures that shape it.
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In Stay Dead, Shapero examines performance, power, comedy, and despair through the lenses of method acting and abstract expressionism.
The politics of labor and performance collide with comedy and tragedy in Natalie Shapero’s fourth poetry collection, Stay Dead. Shapero’s unflinching poems explore theories of acting, discourses of survival, privacy and publicity, power and punchlines, and the language of despair. This work explores how “your death place / is the birthplace you choose.” With appearances by Claude Monet, Mark Rothko, Chris Burden, Studs Terkel, Anthony Bourdain, Gene Kelly, and others, Shapero investigates themes of method acting, abstract expressionism, and the production and commodification of intense expression and raw interiority. She offers sly examinations of labor and housing markets. She interrogates the influence of artists’ material conditions on the work they produce and the culture they shape. With a cutting, sardonic voice, Shapero asks what it means to be a working artist under capitalism; which individuals are permitted earnest extensions of the self; and “whether being born is worth it.”
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