Lawless Explication of Natalie Shapero’s 'Not Horses'

This is the real unbearable lightness of being. A poem of darkness that falls light on the tongue. It begins in negation, a poetic technique Matthew Zapruder articulates well in Why Poetry reflecting on Keats. Shapero uses particular language to speak about the larger scope of our rotting times. ‘Not Horses’ appeared in POETRY in November 2013 and yet feels like a premonition of the era of Trump’s presidency and life in the pandemic. “Everybody’s / busy, so distraught they forget to kill me, / and even that won’t keep me alive.” This feels very much of the now—half our country in a constant state of panic, terrorized by our own leader, a demagogue, who busies himself attention-seeking and fanning flames for the next big news headline. ‘Not Horses’ speaks to a traumatized citizenry daunted by continual traumas over decades. Shapero offers nihilistic consolation in the final lines of this poem: “don’t be afraid — / our whole world is dead and so can do you no harm.”