The Life of Alan Shapiro and Analysis of “Country Western Singer” Essay

Alan Shapiro is a poet whom uses the sorrowful tragedies that occurred in his lifetime and turns them into beautiful poems in which he greatly expresses through his poetry. Most of his poems symbolize either a type of sorrow or tragic death, and the expressions used throughout his poetry make it obtrusive that Alan Shapiro endured a life of hardship and tragedy. While Shapiro was growing up he lost his brother and his sister in which the poem Sleet by Alan Shapiro attractively encompasses his feeling of grief and sorrow due to the loss of his siblings. Alan Shapiro was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on February 18th, 1952. He is the son of Harold and Marilyn Shapiro. Growing up Shapiro was a part of a Jewish household. Shapiro received his education at Brandies University. While attending Brandies University he discovered that his one and only passion was for the astounding art of poetry and he found an escape from all the devastating disasters he encountered in his youth (Garbett ). Shapiro is also now an educator at Stanford University and he has also worked at northwestern University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. As Shapiro conveys in some(prenominal) of his works after researching Shapiros life it is known Shapiros brother and sister some(prenominal) died of cancer while Shapiro was very young, and these events highly contribute to Shapiros work as a poet. The memoir that Shapiro wrote which was entitled Vigil is about the tragic death of his sister due to the unfortunate events of being diagnosed with breast cancer. As it is well known Shapiros poems are very tragic and sorrowfully oriented it is no fault to say that different people happen to react and cope with death in different ways and Shapiro expresses his sadnes... ... This line implies that the drinking will neer end and that no one can stop him from drinking no matter what you do. This poem is a poem that has beautiful imagery that consistently connects the reviewer to whats going on in the actual poem like these lines from Country Western Singer, And the blood I taste, the blood I begin / Is as far away from wine / as 510 is for the one who dies at 509 (37-40). These lines have to do with the final push of the alky and the fact that they lost the battle against alcoholism and did in fact pass away.In the most recent of long time Alan Shapiro has not been as popular as he was some years ago, but no matter what Alan Shapiro poems will forever be engraved in the poetry world as the poems that many people of the world can relate to and I think that this will help him remain a staple in the poetry world for years to come.